Application firewall

ABSTRACT

A firewall uses information about an application that originates a network request to determine whether and how to forward the request over a network. The firewall may more generally rely on the identity of the originating application, the security state of the originating application, the security state of the endpoint, and any other information that might provide an indication of malicious activity, to make routing and forwarding decisions for endpoint-originated network traffic.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation filed under 35 U.S.C. § 111(a) thatclaims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 120 and § 365(c) to International App.No. PCT/US16/40397 filed on Jun. 30, 2016, the entire contents of whichare hereby incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This application relates to improved protection of endpoints in anenterprise network against malicious attacks or other misuse.

BACKGROUND

Enterprise networks may contain valuable corporate and personalinformation that forms an increasingly attractive target for maliciousactors. Useful techniques for securing endpoints in a network againstmalicious activity are described by way of example in commonly-ownedU.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/099,524 filed on Apr. 14, 2016, U.S.patent application Ser. No. 15/130,244 filed on Apr. 15, 2016 and U.S.patent application Ser. No. 15/136,687 filed on Apr. 22, 2016, each ofwhich is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

There remains a need for improved techniques for detecting andprotecting against malicious activity and consequences thereof.

SUMMARY

A firewall uses information about an application that originates anetwork request to determine whether and how to forward the request overa network. The firewall may more generally rely on the identity of theoriginating application, the security state of the originatingapplication, the security state of the endpoint, and any otherinformation that might provide an indication of malicious activity, tomake routing and forwarding decisions for endpoint-originated networktraffic.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the devices,systems, and methods described herein will be apparent from thefollowing description of particular embodiments thereof, as illustratedin the accompanying drawings. The drawings are not necessarily to scale,emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of thedevices, systems, and methods described herein.

FIG. 1 illustrates an environment for threat management.

FIG. 2 illustrates a computer system.

FIG. 3 illustrates a threat management system.

FIG. 4 illustrates a system for behavioral tracking, coloring, andgeneration of indications of compromise (IOCs).

FIG. 5 illustrates a system for encryption management.

FIG. 6 illustrates a threat management system using heartbeats.

FIG. 7 shows an architecture for endpoint protection in an enterprisenetwork security system.

FIG. 8 shows a method for proactive network security using a healthheartbeat.

FIG. 9 shows a method for detecting malicious lateral movement in anetwork.

FIG. 10 shows a system for baiting endpoints to improve detection ofauthentication attacks.

FIG. 11 shows a method for baiting endpoints to improve detection ofauthentication attacks.

FIG. 12 shows a multi-modal monitoring system for improved detection ofphishing attacks.

FIG. 13 shows a method for improved detection and prevention of phishingattacks.

FIG. 14 shows a method for handling network traffic based on theidentity of a source application for the traffic.

FIG. 15 shows a system for multi-factor authentication using an endpointheartbeat.

FIG. 16 shows a method for multi-factor authentication using an endpointheartbeat.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanyingfigures, in which preferred embodiments are shown. The foregoing may,however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construedas limited to the illustrated embodiments set forth herein.

All documents mentioned herein are hereby incorporated by reference intheir entirety. References to items in the singular should be understoodto include items in the plural, and vice versa, unless explicitly statedotherwise or clear from the context. Grammatical conjunctions areintended to express any and all disjunctive and conjunctive combinationsof conjoined clauses, sentences, words, and the like, unless otherwisestated or clear from the context. Thus, the term “or” should generallybe understood to mean “and/or” and so forth.

Recitation of ranges of values herein are not intended to be limiting,referring instead individually to any and all values falling within therange, unless otherwise indicated herein, and each separate value withinsuch a range is incorporated into the specification as if it wereindividually recited herein. The words “about,” “approximately,” or thelike, when accompanying a numerical value, are to be construed asindicating a deviation as would be appreciated by one of ordinary skillin the art to operate satisfactorily for an intended purpose. Ranges ofvalues and/or numeric values are provided herein as examples only, anddo not constitute a limitation on the scope of the describedembodiments. The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language(“e.g.,” “such as,” or the like) provided herein, is intended merely tobetter illuminate the embodiments and does not pose a limitation on thescope of the embodiments or the claims. No language in the specificationshould be construed as indicating any unclaimed element as essential tothe practice of the embodiments.

In the following description, it is understood that terms such as“first,” “second,” “third,” “above,” “below,” and the like, are words ofconvenience and are not to be construed as implying a chronologicalorder or otherwise limiting any corresponding element unless expresslystate otherwise.

FIG. 1 illustrates an environment for threat management. Specifically,FIG. 1 depicts a block diagram of a threat management system providingprotection to an enterprise against a plurality of threats—a context inwhich the following techniques may usefully be deployed. One aspectrelates to corporate policy management and implementation through aunified threat management facility 100. As will be explained in moredetail below, a threat management facility 100 may be used to protectcomputer assets from many threats, both computer-generated threats anduser-generated threats. The threat management facility 100 may bemulti-dimensional in that it may be designed to protect corporate assetsfrom a variety of threats and it may be adapted to learn about threatsin one dimension (e.g. worm detection) and apply the knowledge inanother dimension (e.g. spam detection). Policy management is one of thedimensions for which the threat management facility can provide acontrol capability. A corporation or other entity may institute a policythat prevents certain people (e.g. employees, groups of employees, typesof employees, guest of the corporation, etc.) from accessing certaintypes of computer programs. For example, the corporation may elect toprevent its accounting department from using a particular version of aninstant messaging service or all such services. In this example, thepolicy management facility 112 may be used to update the policies of allcorporate computing assets with a proper policy control facility or itmay update a select few. By using the threat management facility 100 tofacilitate the setting, updating and control of such policies thecorporation only needs to be concerned with keeping the threatmanagement facility 100 up to date on such policies. The threatmanagement facility 100 can take care of updating all of the othercorporate computing assets.

It should be understood that the threat management facility 100 mayprovide multiple services, and policy management may be offered as oneof the services. We will now turn to a description of certaincapabilities and components of the threat management system 100.

Over recent years, malware has become a major problem across theInternet 154. From both a technical perspective and a user perspective,the categorization of a specific threat type, whether as virus, worm,spam, phishing exploration, spyware, adware, or the like, is becomingreduced in significance. The threat, no matter how it is categorized,may need to be stopped at various points of a networked computingenvironment, such as one of an enterprise facility 102, including at oneor more laptops, desktops, servers, gateways, communication ports,handheld or mobile devices, firewalls, and the like. Similarly, theremay be less and less benefit to the user in having different solutionsfor known and unknown threats. As such, a consolidated threat managementfacility 100 may need to apply a similar set of technologies andcapabilities for all threats. In certain embodiments, the threatmanagement facility 100 may provide a single agent on the desktop, and asingle scan of any suspect file. This approach may eliminate theinevitable overlaps and gaps in protection caused by treating virusesand spyware as separate problems, while simultaneously simplifyingadministration and minimizing desktop load. As the number and range oftypes of threats has increased, so may have the level of connectivityavailable to all IT users. This may have led to a rapid increase in thespeed at which threats may move. Today, an unprotected PC connected tothe Internet 154 may be infected quickly (perhaps within 10 minutes)which may require acceleration for the delivery of threat protection.Where once monthly updates may have been sufficient, the threatmanagement facility 100 may automatically and seamlessly update itsproduct set against spam and virus threats quickly, for instance, everyfive minutes, every minute, continuously, or the like. Analysis andtesting may be increasingly automated, and also may be performed morefrequently; for instance, it may be completed in 15 minutes, and may doso without compromising quality. The threat management facility 100 mayalso extend techniques that may have been developed for virus andmalware protection, and provide them to enterprise facility 102 networkadministrators to better control their environments. In addition tostopping malicious code, the threat management facility 100 may providepolicy management that may be able to control legitimate applications,such as VoIP, instant messaging, peer-to-peer file-sharing, and thelike, that may undermine productivity and network performance within theenterprise facility 102.

The threat management facility 100 may provide an enterprise facility102 protection from computer-based malware, including viruses, spyware,adware, Trojans, intrusion, spam, policy abuse, uncontrolled access, andthe like, where the enterprise facility 102 may be any entity with anetworked computer-based infrastructure. In an embodiment, FIG. 1 maydepict a block diagram of the threat management facility 100 providingprotection to an enterprise against a plurality of threats. Theenterprise facility 102 may be corporate, commercial, educational,governmental, or the like, and the enterprise facility's 102 computernetwork may be distributed amongst a plurality of facilities, and in aplurality of geographical locations, and may include administration 134,a firewall 138A, an appliance 140A, server 142A, network devices 148A-B,clients 144A-D, such as protected by computer security facilities 152,and the like. It will be understood that any reference herein to clientfacilities may include the clients 144A-D shown in FIG. 1 andvice-versa. The threat management facility 100 may include a pluralityof functions, such as security management facility 122, policymanagement facility 112, update facility 120, definitions facility 114,network access rules facility 124, remedial action facility 128,detection techniques facility 130, testing facility 118, threat researchfacility 132, and the like. In embodiments, the threat protectionprovided by the threat management facility 100 may extend beyond thenetwork boundaries of the enterprise facility 102 to include clients144D (or client facilities) that have moved into network connectivitynot directly associated or controlled by the enterprise facility 102.Threats to client facilities may come from a plurality of sources, suchas from network threats 104, physical proximity threats 110, secondarylocation threats 108, and the like. Clients 144A-D may be protected fromthreats even when the client 144A-D is not located in association withthe enterprise 102, such as when a client 144E-F moves in and out of theenterprise facility 102, for example when interfacing with anunprotected server 142C through the Internet 154, when a client 144F ismoving into a secondary location threat 108 such as interfacing withcomponents 140B, 142B, 148C, 148D that are not protected, and the like.In embodiments, the threat management facility 100 may provide anenterprise facility 102 protection from a plurality of threats tomultiplatform computer resources in a plurality of locations and networkconfigurations, with an integrated system approach. It should beunderstood that an enterprise model is applicable to organizations andusers of any size or type. For example, an enterprise may be or mayinclude a group or association of endpoints, networks, users, and thelike within or outside of one or more protected locations. It should beunderstood that an enterprise may include one or more offices orbusiness locations, or one or more homes, where each location, orportions of each location, or a collection of locations may be treatedas a client facility.

In embodiments, the threat management facility 100 may be provided as astand-alone solution. In other embodiments, the threat managementfacility 100 may be integrated into a third-party product. Anapplication programming interface (e.g. a source code interface) may beprovided such that the threat management facility 100 may be integrated.For instance, the threat management facility 100 may be stand-alone inthat it provides direct threat protection to an enterprise or computerresource, where protection is subscribed to directly 100. Alternatively,the threat management facility 100 may offer protection indirectly,through a third-party product, where an enterprise may subscribe toservices through the third-party product, and threat protection to theenterprise may be provided by the threat management facility 100 throughthe third-party product.

The security management facility 122 may include a plurality of elementsthat provide protection from malware to enterprise facility 102 computerresources, including endpoint security and control, email security andcontrol, web security and control, reputation-based filtering, controlof unauthorized users, control of guest and non-compliant computers, andthe like. The security management facility 122 may be a softwareapplication that may provide malicious code and malicious applicationprotection to a client facility computing resource. The securitymanagement facility 122 may have the ability to scan the client facilityfiles for malicious code, remove or quarantine certain applications andfiles, prevent certain actions, perform remedial actions and performother security measures. In embodiments, scanning the client facilitymay include scanning some or all of the files stored to the clientfacility on a periodic basis, scanning an application when theapplication is executed, scanning files as the files are transmitted toor from the client facility, or the like. The scanning of theapplications and files may be performed to detect known malicious codeor known unwanted applications. In an embodiment, new malicious code andunwanted applications may be continually developed and distributed, andupdates to the known code database may be provided on a periodic basis,on a demand basis, on an alert basis, or the like.

The security management facility 122 may provide email security andcontrol, where security management may help to eliminate spam, viruses,spyware and phishing, control of email content, and the like. Thesecurity management facility's 122 email security and control mayprotect against inbound and outbound threats, protect emailinfrastructure, prevent data leakage, provide spam filtering, and thelike. In an embodiment, security management facility 122 may provide forweb security and control, where security management may help to detector block viruses, spyware, malware, unwanted applications, help controlweb browsing, and the like, which may provide comprehensive web accesscontrol enabling safe, productive web browsing. Web security and controlmay provide Internet use policies, reporting on suspect devices,security and content filtering, active monitoring of network traffic,URI filtering, and the like. In an embodiment, the security managementfacility 122 may provide for network access control, which may providecontrol over network connections. Network control may stop unauthorized,guest, or non-compliant systems from accessing networks, and may controlnetwork traffic that may not be bypassed from the client level. Inaddition, network access control may control access to virtual privatenetworks (VPN), where VPNs may be a communications network tunneledthrough another network, establishing a logical connection acting as avirtual network. In embodiments, a VPN may be treated in the same manneras a physical network.

The security management facility 122 may provide host intrusionprevention through behavioral based protection, which may guard againstunknown threats by analyzing behavior before software code executes.Behavioral based protection may monitor code when it runs and interveneif the code is deemed to be suspicious or malicious. Advantages ofbehavioral based protection over runtime protection may include codebeing prevented from running. Whereas runtime protection may onlyinterrupt code that has already partly executed, behavioral protectioncan identify malicious code at the gateway or on the file servers anddelete the code before it can reach endpoint computers and the like.

The security management facility 122 may provide reputation filtering,which may target or identify sources of known malware. For instance,reputation filtering may include lists of URIs of known sources ofmalware or known suspicious IP addresses, or domains, say for spam, thatwhen detected may invoke an action by the threat management facility100, such as dropping them immediately. By dropping the source beforeany interaction can initiate, potential threat sources may be thwartedbefore any exchange of data can be made.

In embodiments, information may be sent from the enterprise back to athird party, a vendor, or the like, which may lead to improvedperformance of the threat management facility 100. For example, thetypes, times, and number of virus interactions that a client experiencesmay provide useful information for the preventions of future virusthreats. This type of feedback may be useful for any aspect of threatdetection. Feedback of information may also be associated with behaviorsof individuals within the enterprise, such as being associated with mostcommon violations of policy, network access, unauthorized applicationloading, unauthorized external device use, and the like. In embodiments,this type of information feedback may enable the evaluation or profilingof client actions that are violations of policy that may provide apredictive model for the improvement of enterprise policies.

The security management facility 122 may support overall security of theenterprise facility 102 network or set of enterprise facility 102networks, e.g., by providing updates of malicious code information tothe enterprise facility 102 network and associated client facilities.The updates may include a planned update, an update in reaction to athreat notice, an update in reaction to a request for an update, anupdate based on a search of known malicious code information, or thelike. The administration facility 134 may provide control over thesecurity management facility 122 when updates are performed. The updatesmay be automatically transmitted without an administration facility's134 direct control, manually transmitted by the administration facility134, or otherwise distributed. The security management facility 122 maymanage the receipt of malicious code descriptions from a provider,distribution of the malicious code descriptions to enterprise facility102 networks, distribution of the malicious code descriptions to clientfacilities, and so forth.

The threat management facility 100 may provide a policy managementfacility 112 that may be able to block non-malicious applications, suchas VoIP, instant messaging, peer-to-peer file-sharing, and the like,that may undermine productivity and network performance within theenterprise facility 102. The policy management facility 112 may be a setof rules or policies that may indicate enterprise facility 102 accesspermissions for the client facility, such as access permissionsassociated with the network, applications, external computer devices,and the like. The policy management facility 112 may include a database,a text file, a combination of databases and text files, or the like. Inan embodiment, a policy database may be a block list, a black list, anallowed list, a white list, or the like that may provide a list ofenterprise facility 102 external network locations/applications that mayor may not be accessed by the client facility. The policy managementfacility 112 may include rules that may be interpreted with respect toan enterprise facility 102 network access request to determine if therequest should be allowed. The rules may provide a generic rule for thetype of access that may be granted. The rules may be related to thepolicies of an enterprise facility 102 for access rights for theenterprise facility's 102 client facility. For example, there may be arule that does not permit access to sporting websites. When a website isrequested by the client facility, a security facility may access therules within a policy facility to determine if the requested access isrelated to a sporting website. In an embodiment, the security facilitymay analyze the requested website to determine if the website matcheswith any of the policy facility rules.

The policy management facility 112 may be similar to the securitymanagement facility 122 but with the addition of enterprise facility 102wide access rules and policies that may be distributed to maintaincontrol of client facility access to enterprise facility 102 networkresources. The policies may be defined for application type, subset ofapplication capabilities, organization hierarchy, computer facilitytype, user type, network location, time of day, connection type, or thelike. Policies may be maintained by the administration facility 134,through the threat management facility 100, in association with a thirdparty, or the like. For example, a policy may restrict IM activity toonly support personnel for communicating with customers. This may allowcommunication for departments requiring access, but may maintain thenetwork bandwidth for other activities by restricting the use of IM toonly the personnel that need access to instant messaging (IM) in supportof the enterprise facility 102. In an embodiment, the policy managementfacility 112 may be a stand-alone application, may be part of thenetwork server facility 142, may be part of the enterprise facility 102network, may be part of the client facility, or the like.

The threat management facility 100 may provide configuration management,which may be similar to policy management, but may specifically examinethe configuration set of applications, operating systems, hardware, andthe like, and manage changes to their configurations. Assessment of aconfiguration may be made against a standard configuration policy,detection of configuration changes, remediation of improperconfiguration, application of new configurations, and the like. Anenterprise may keep a set of standard configuration rules and policieswhich may represent the desired state of the device. For example, aclient firewall may be running and installed, but in the disabled state,where remediation may be to enable the firewall. In another example, theenterprise may set a rule that disallows the use of USB disks, and sendsa configuration change to all clients, which turns off USB drive accessvia a registry.

The threat management facility 100 may also provide for the removal ofapplications that potentially interfere with the operation of the threatmanagement facility 100, such as competitor products that may also beattempting similar threat management functions. The removal of suchproducts may be initiated automatically whenever such products aredetected. In the case where such applications are services are providedindirectly through a third-party product, the application may besuspended until action is taken to remove or disable the third-partyproduct's protection facility.

Threat management against a quickly evolving malware environment mayrequire timely updates, and thus an update management facility 120 maybe provided by the threat management facility 100. In addition, a policymanagement facility 112 may also require update management (e.g., asprovided by the update facility 120 herein described). The updatemanagement for the security facility 122 and policy management facility112 may be provided directly by the threat management facility 100, suchas by a hosted system or in conjunction with the administration facility134. In embodiments, the threat management facility 100 may provide forpatch management, where a patch may be an update to an operating system,an application, a system tool, or the like, where one of the reasons forthe patch is to reduce vulnerability to threats.

The security facility 122 and policy management facility 112 may pushinformation to the enterprise facility 102 network and/or clientfacility. The enterprise facility 102 network and/or client facility mayalso or instead pull information from the security facility 122 andpolicy management facility 112 network server facilities 142, or theremay be a combination of pushing and pulling of information between thesecurity facility 122 and the policy management facility 112 networkservers 142, enterprise facility 102 network, and client facilities, orthe like. For example, the enterprise facility 102 network and/or clientfacility may pull information from the security facility 122 and policymanagement facility 112 network server facility 142 may request theinformation using the security facility 122 and policy managementfacility 112 update module; the request may be based on a certain timeperiod, by a certain time, by a date, on demand, or the like. In anotherexample, the security facility 122 and policy management facility 112network servers 142 may push the information to the enterprisefacility's 102 network and/or client facility by providing notificationthat there are updates available for download and then transmitting theinformation. The combination of the security management 122 networkserver facility 142 and security update module may functionsubstantially the same as the policy management facility 112 networkserver and policy update module by providing information to theenterprise facility 102 network and the client facility in a push orpull method. In an embodiment, the policy management facility 112 andthe security facility 122 management update modules may work in concertto provide information to the enterprise facility's 102 network and/orclient facility for control of application execution. In an embodiment,the policy update module and security update module may be combined intoa single update module.

As threats are identified and characterized, the threat managementfacility 100 may create definition updates that may be used to allow thethreat management facility 100 to detect and remediate the latestmalicious software, unwanted applications, configuration and policychanges, and the like. The threat definition facility 114 may containthreat identification updates, also referred to as definition files. Adefinition file may be a virus identity file that may includedefinitions of known or potential malicious code. The virus identity(IDE) definition files may provide information that may identifymalicious code within files, applications, or the like. The definitionfiles may be accessed by security management facility 122 when scanningfiles or applications within the client facility for the determinationof malicious code that may be within the file or application. Thedefinition files may contain a number of commands, definitions, orinstructions, to be parsed and acted upon, or the like. In embodiments,the client facility may be updated with new definition filesperiodically to provide the client facility with the most recentmalicious code definitions; the updating may be performed on a set timeperiod, may be updated on demand from the client facility, may beupdated on demand from the network, may be updated on a receivedmalicious code alert, or the like. In an embodiment, the client facilitymay request an update to the definition files from an update facility120 within the network, may request updated definition files from acomputing facility external to the network, updated definition files maybe provided to the client facility 114 from within the network,definition files may be provided to the client facility from an externalcomputing facility from an external network, or the like.

A definition management facility 114 may provide timely updates ofdefinition files information to the network, client facilities, and thelike. New and altered malicious code and malicious applications may becontinually created and distributed to networks worldwide. Thedefinition files that maintain the definitions of the malicious code andmalicious application information for the protection of the networks andclient facilities may need continual updating to provide continualdefense of the network and client facility from the malicious code andmalicious applications. The definition files management may provide forautomatic and manual methods of updating the definition files. Inembodiments, the network may receive definition files and distribute thedefinition files to the network client facilities, the client facilitiesmay receive the definition files directly, or the network and clientfacilities may both receive the definition files, or the like. In anembodiment, the definition files may be updated on a fixed periodicbasis, on demand by the network and/or the client facility, as a resultof an alert of a new malicious code or malicious application, or thelike. In an embodiment, the definition files may be released as asupplemental file to an existing definition files to provide for rapidupdating of the definition files.

In a similar manner, the security management facility 122 may be used toscan an outgoing file and verify that the outgoing file is permitted tobe transmitted per the enterprise facility 102 rules and policies. Bychecking outgoing files, the security management facility 122 may beable discover malicious code infected files that were not detected asincoming files as a result of the client facility having been updatedwith either new definition files or policy management facility 112information. The definition files may discover the malicious codeinfected file by having received updates of developing malicious codefrom the administration facility 134, updates from a definition filesprovider, or the like. The policy management facility 112 may discoverthe malicious code infected file by having received new updates from theadministration facility 134, from a rules provider, or the like.

The threat management facility 100 may provide controlled access to theenterprise facility 102 networks. For instance, a manager of theenterprise facility 102 may want to restrict access to certainapplications, networks, files, printers, servers, databases, or thelike. In addition, the manager of the enterprise facility 102 may wantto restrict user access based on certain criteria, such as the user'slocation, usage history, need to know, job position, connection type,time of day, method of authentication, client-system configuration, orthe like. Network access rules may be developed for the enterprisefacility 102, or pre-packaged by a supplier, and managed by the threatmanagement facility 100 in conjunction with the administration facility134.

A network access rules facility 124 may be responsible for determiningif a client facility application should be granted access to a requestednetwork location. The network location may be on the same network as thefacility or may be on another network. In an embodiment, the networkaccess rules facility 124 may verify access rights for client facilitiesfrom within the network or may verify access rights of computerfacilities from external networks. When network access for a clientfacility is denied, the network access rules facility 124 may send aninformation file to the client facility containing. For example, theinformation sent by the network access rules facility 124 may be a datafile. The data file may contain a number of commands, definitions,instructions, or the like to be parsed and acted upon through theremedial action facility 128, or the like. The information sent by thenetwork access facility rules facility 124 may be a command or commandfile that the remedial action facility 128 may access and take actionupon.

The network access rules facility 124 may include databases such as ablock list, a black list, an allowed list, a white list, an unacceptablenetwork site database, an acceptable network site database, a networksite reputation database, or the like of network access locations thatmay or may not be accessed by the client facility. Additionally, thenetwork access rules facility 124 may incorporate rule evaluation; therule evaluation may parse network access requests and apply the parsedinformation to network access rules. The network access rule facility124 may have a generic set of rules that may be in support of anenterprise facility's 102 network access policies, such as denyingaccess to certain types of websites, controlling instant messengeraccesses, or the like. Rule evaluation may include regular expressionrule evaluation, or other rule evaluation method for interpreting thenetwork access request and comparing the interpretation to theestablished rules for network access. In an embodiment, the networkaccess rules facility 124 may receive a rules evaluation request fromthe network access control and may return the rules evaluation to thenetwork access control.

Similar to the threat definitions facility 114, the network access rulefacility 124 may provide updated rules and policies to the enterprisefacility 102. The network access rules facility 124 may be maintained bythe network administration facility 134, using network access rulesfacility 124 management. In an embodiment, the network administrationfacility 134 may be able to maintain a set of access rules manually byadding rules, changing rules, deleting rules, or the like. Additionally,the administration facility 134 may retrieve predefined rule sets from aremote provider of a set of rules to be applied to an entire enterprisefacility 102. The network administration facility 134 may be able tomodify the predefined rules as needed for a particular enterprisefacility 102 using the network access rules management facility 124.

When a threat or policy violation is detected by the threat managementfacility 100, the threat management facility 100 may perform or initiatea remedial action facility 128. Remedial action may take a plurality offorms, such as terminating or modifying an ongoing process orinteraction, sending a warning to a client or administration facility134 of an ongoing process or interaction, executing a program orapplication to remediate against a threat or violation, recordinteractions for subsequent evaluation, or the like. Remedial action maybe associated with an application that responds to information that aclient facility network access request has been denied. In anembodiment, when the data file is received, remedial action may parsethe data file, interpret the various aspects of the data file, and acton the parsed data file information to determine actions to be taken onan application requesting access to a denied network location. In anembodiment, when the data file is received, remedial action may accessthe threat definitions to parse the data file and determine an action tobe taken on an application requesting access to a denied networklocation. In an embodiment, the information received from the facilitymay be a command or a command file. The remedial action facility maycarry out any commands that are received or parsed from a data file fromthe facility without performing any interpretation of the commands. Inan embodiment, the remedial action facility may interact with thereceived information and may perform various actions on a clientrequesting access to a denied network location. The action may be one ormore of continuing to block all requests to a denied network location, amalicious code scan on the application, a malicious code scan on theclient facility, quarantine of the application, terminating theapplication, isolation of the application, isolation of the clientfacility to a location within the network that restricts network access,blocking a network access port from a client facility, reporting theapplication to an administration facility 134, or the like.

Remedial action may be provided as a result of a detection of a threator violation. The detection techniques facility 130 may includemonitoring the enterprise facility 102 network or endpoint devices, suchas by monitoring streaming data through the gateway, across the network,through routers and hubs, and the like. The detection techniquesfacility 130 may include monitoring activity and stored files oncomputing facilities, such as on server facilities 142, desktopcomputers, laptop computers, other mobile computing devices, and thelike. Detection techniques, such as scanning a computer's stored files,may provide the capability of checking files for stored threats, eitherin the active or passive state. Detection techniques, such as streamingfile management, may provide the capability of checking files receivedat the network, gateway facility, client facility, and the like. Thismay provide the capability of not allowing a streaming file or portionsof the streaming file containing malicious code from entering the clientfacility, gateway facility, or network. In an embodiment, the streamingfile may be broken into blocks of information, and a plurality of virusidentities may be used to check each of the blocks of information formalicious code. In an embodiment, any blocks that are not determined tobe clear of malicious code may not be delivered to the client facility,gateway facility, or network.

Verifying that the threat management facility 100 is detecting threatsand violations to established policy, may require the ability to testthe system, either at the system level or for a particular computingcomponent. The testing facility 118 may allow the administrationfacility 134 to coordinate the testing of the security configurations ofclient facility computing facilities on a network. The administrationfacility 134 may be able to send test files to a set of client facilitycomputing facilities to test the ability of the client facility todetermine acceptability of the test file. After the test file has beentransmitted, a recording facility may record the actions taken by theclient facility in reaction to the test file. The recording facility mayaggregate the testing information from the client facility and reportthe testing information to the administration facility 134. Theadministration facility 134 may be able to determine the level ofpreparedness of the client facility computing facilities by the reportedinformation. Remedial action may be taken for any of the client facilitycomputing facilities as determined by the administration facility 134;remedial action may be taken by the administration facility 134 or bythe user of the client facility.

The threat research facility 132 may provide a continuously ongoingeffort to maintain the threat protection capabilities of the threatmanagement facility 100 in light of continuous generation of new orevolved forms of malware. Threat research may include researchers andanalysts working on known and emerging malware, such as viruses,rootkits a spyware, as well as other computer threats such as phishing,spam, scams, and the like. In embodiments, through threat research, thethreat management facility 100 may be able to provide swift, globalresponses to the latest threats.

The threat management facility 100 may provide threat protection to theenterprise facility 102, where the enterprise facility 102 may include aplurality of networked components, such as client facility, serverfacility 142, administration facility 134, firewall 138, gateway, hubsand routers 148, threat management appliance 140, desktop users, mobileusers, and the like. In embodiments, it may be the endpoint computersecurity facility 152, located on a computer's desktop, which mayprovide threat protection to a user, and associated enterprise facility102. In embodiments, the term endpoint may refer to a computer systemthat may source data, receive data, evaluate data, buffer data, or thelike (such as a user's desktop computer as an endpoint computer), afirewall as a data evaluation endpoint computer system, a laptop as amobile endpoint computer, a personal digital assistant or tablet as ahand-held endpoint computer, a mobile phone as an endpoint computer, orthe like. In embodiments, endpoint may refer to a source or destinationfor data, including such components where the destination ischaracterized by an evaluation point for data, and where the data may besent to a subsequent destination after evaluation. The endpoint computersecurity facility 152 may be an application loaded onto the computerplatform or computer support component, where the application mayaccommodate the plurality of computer platforms and/or functionalrequirements of the component. For instance, a client facility computermay be one of a plurality of computer platforms, such as Windows,Macintosh, Linux, and the like, where the endpoint computer securityfacility 152 may be adapted to the specific platform, while maintaininga uniform product and product services across platforms. Additionally,components may have different functions to serve within the enterprisefacility's 102 networked computer-based infrastructure. For instance,computer support components provided as hubs and routers 148, serverfacility 142, firewalls 138, and the like, may require unique securityapplication software to protect their portion of the systeminfrastructure, while providing an element in an integrated threatmanagement system that extends out beyond the threat management facility100 to incorporate all computer resources under its protection.

The enterprise facility 102 may include a plurality of client facilitycomputing platforms on which the endpoint computer security facility 152is adapted. A client facility computing platform may be a computersystem that is able to access a service on another computer, such as aserver facility 142, via a network. This client facility server facility142 model may apply to a plurality of networked applications, such as aclient facility connecting to an enterprise facility 102 applicationserver facility 142, a web browser client facility connecting to a webserver facility 142, an e-mail client facility retrieving e-mail from anInternet 154 service provider's mail storage servers 142, and the like.In embodiments, traditional large client facility applications may beswitched to websites, which may increase the browser's role as a clientfacility. Clients 144 may be classified as a function of the extent towhich they perform their own processing. For instance, client facilitiesare sometimes classified as a fat client facility or thin clientfacility. The fat client facility, also known as a thick client facilityor rich client facility, may be a client facility that performs the bulkof data processing operations itself, and does not necessarily rely onthe server facility 142. The fat client facility may be most common inthe form of a personal computer, where the personal computer may operateindependent of any server facility 142. Programming environments for fatclients 144 may include CURT, Delphi, Droplets, Java, win32, X11, andthe like. Thin clients 144 may offer minimal processing capabilities,for instance, the thin client facility may primarily provide a graphicaluser interface provided by an application server facility 142, which mayperform the bulk of any required data processing. Programmingenvironments for thin clients 144 may include JavaScript/AJAX, ASP, JSP,Ruby on Rails, Python's Django, PHP, and the like. The client facilitymay also be a mix of the two, such as processing data locally, butrelying on a server facility 142 for data storage. As a result, thishybrid client facility may provide benefits from both the fat clientfacility type, such as multimedia support and high performance, and thethin client facility type, such as high manageability and flexibility.In embodiments, the threat management facility 100, and associatedendpoint computer security facility 152, may provide seamless threatprotection to the plurality of clients 144, and client facility types,across the enterprise facility 102.

The enterprise facility 102 may include a plurality of server facilities142, such as application servers, communications servers, file servers,database servers, proxy servers, mail servers, fax servers, gameservers, web servers, and the like. A server facility 142, which mayalso be referred to as a server facility 142 application, serverfacility 142 operating system, server facility 142 computer, or thelike, may be an application program or operating system that acceptsclient facility connections in order to service requests from clients144. The server facility 142 application may run on the same computer asthe client facility using it, or the server facility 142 and the clientfacility may be running on different computers and communicating acrossthe network. Server facility 142 applications may be divided amongserver facility 142 computers, with the dividing depending upon theworkload. For instance, under light load conditions all server facility142 applications may run on a single computer and under heavy loadconditions a single server facility 142 application may run on multiplecomputers. In embodiments, the threat management facility 100 mayprovide threat protection to server facilities 142 within the enterprisefacility 102 as load conditions and application changes are made.

A server facility 142 may also be an appliance facility 140, where theappliance facility 140 provides specific services onto the network.Though the appliance facility 140 is a server facility 142 computer,that may be loaded with a server facility 142 operating system andserver facility 142 application, the enterprise facility 102 user maynot need to configure it, as the configuration may have been performedby a third party. In an embodiment, an enterprise facility 102 appliancemay be a server facility 142 appliance that has been configured andadapted for use with the threat management facility 100, and locatedwithin the facilities of the enterprise facility 102. The enterprisefacility's 102 threat management appliance may enable the enterprisefacility 102 to administer an on-site local managed threat protectionconfiguration, where the administration facility 134 may access thethreat resources through an interface, such as a web portal. In analternate embodiment, the enterprise facility 102 may be managedremotely from a third party, vendor, or the like, without an appliancefacility 140 located within the enterprise facility 102. In thisinstance, the appliance functionality may be a shared hardware productbetween pluralities of enterprises 102. In embodiments, the appliancefacility 140 may be located at the enterprise facility 102, where theenterprise facility 102 maintains a degree of control. In embodiments, ahosted service may be provided, where the appliance 140 may still be anon-site black box to the enterprise facility 102, physically placedthere because of infrastructure requirements, but managed by a thirdparty, vendor, or the like.

Simple server facility 142 appliances may also be utilized across theenterprise facility's 102 network infrastructure, such as switches,routers, wireless routers, hubs and routers, gateways, print servers,net modems, and the like. These simple server facility appliances maynot require configuration by the enterprise facility 102, but mayrequire protection from threats via an endpoint computer securityfacility 152. These appliances may provide interconnection serviceswithin the enterprise facility 102 network, and therefore may advancethe spread of a threat if not properly protected.

A client facility may be protected from threats from within theenterprise facility 102 network using a personal firewall, which may bea hardware firewall, software firewall, or combination of these, thatcontrols network traffic to and from a client. The personal firewall maypermit or deny communications based on a security policy. Personalfirewalls may be designed for use by end-users, which may result inprotection for only the computer on which it's installed. Personalfirewalls may be able to control network traffic by providing promptseach time a connection is attempted and adapting security policyaccordingly. Personal firewalls may also provide some level of intrusiondetection, which may allow the software to terminate or blockconnectivity where it suspects an intrusion is being attempted. Otherfeatures that may be provided by a personal firewall may include alertsabout outgoing connection attempts, control of program access tonetworks, hiding the client from port scans by not responding tounsolicited network traffic, monitoring of applications that may belistening for incoming connections, monitoring and regulation ofincoming and outgoing network traffic, prevention of unwanted networktraffic from installed applications, reporting applications that makeconnection attempts, reporting destination servers with whichapplications may be attempting communications, and the like. Inembodiments, the personal firewall may be provided by the threatmanagement facility 100.

Another important component that may be protected by an endpointcomputer security facility 152 is a network firewall facility 138, whichmay be a hardware or software device that may be configured to permit,deny, or proxy data through a computer network that has different levelsof trust in its source of data. For instance, an internal enterprisefacility 102 network may have a high level of trust, because the sourceof all data has been sourced from within the enterprise facility 102. Anexample of a low level of trust is the Internet 154, because the sourceof data may be unknown. A zone with an intermediate trust level,situated between the Internet 154 and a trusted internal network, may bereferred to as a “perimeter network.” Since firewall facilities 138represent boundaries between threat levels, the endpoint computersecurity facility 152 associated with the firewall facility 138 mayprovide resources that may control the flow of threats at thisenterprise facility 102 network entry point. Firewall facilities 138,and associated endpoint computer security facility 152, may also beassociated with a network node that may be equipped for interfacingbetween networks that use different protocols. In embodiments, theendpoint computer security facility 152 may provide threat protection ina plurality of network infrastructure locations, such as at theenterprise facility 102 network entry point, i.e. the firewall facility138 or gateway; at the server facility 142; at distribution pointswithin the network, i.e. the hubs and routers 148; at the desktop ofclient facility computers; and the like. In embodiments, the mosteffective location for threat detection may be at the user's computerdesktop endpoint computer security facility 152.

The interface between the threat management facility 100 and theenterprise facility 102, and through the appliance facility 140 toembedded endpoint computer security facilities, may include a set oftools that may be the same for all enterprise implementations, but alloweach enterprise to implement different controls. In embodiments, thesecontrols may include both automatic actions and managed actions.Automatic actions may include downloads of the endpoint computersecurity facility 152 to components of the enterprise facility 102,downloads of updates to existing endpoint computer security facilitiesof the enterprise facility 102, uploaded network interaction requestsfrom enterprise facility 102 components to the threat managementfacility 100, and the like. In embodiments, automatic interactionsbetween the enterprise facility 102 and the threat management facility100 may be configured by the threat management facility 100 and anadministration facility 134 in the enterprise facility 102. Theadministration facility 134 may configure policy rules that determineinteractions, such as developing rules for accessing applications, as inwho is authorized and when applications may be used; establishing rulesfor ethical behavior and activities; rules governing the use ofentertainment software such as games, or personal use software such asIM and VoIP; rules for determining access to enterprise facility 102computing resources, including authentication, levels of access, riskassessment, and usage history tracking; rules for when an action is notallowed, such as whether an action is completely deigned or justmodified in its execution; and the like. The administration facility 134may also establish license management, which in turn may furtherdetermine interactions associated with a licensed application. Inembodiments, interactions between the threat management facility 100 andthe enterprise facility 102 may provide threat protection to theenterprise facility 102 by managing the flow of network data into andout of the enterprise facility 102 through automatic actions that may beconfigured by the threat management facility 100 or the administrationfacility 134.

Client facilities within the enterprise facility 102 may be connected tothe enterprise facility 102 network by way of wired network facilities148A or wireless network facilities 148B. Client facilities connected tothe enterprise facility 102 network via a wired facility 148A orwireless facility 148B may receive similar protection, as bothconnection types are ultimately connected to the same enterprisefacility 102 network, with the same endpoint computer security facility152, and the same threat protected enterprise facility 102 environment.Mobile wireless facility clients 144B-F, because of their ability toconnect to any wireless 148B,D network access point, may connect to theInternet 154 outside the enterprise facility 102, and therefore outsidethe threat-protected environment of the enterprise facility 102. In thisinstance the mobile client facility (e.g., the clients 144 B-F), if notfor the presence of the endpoint computer security facility 152 mayexperience a malware attack or perform actions counter to enterprisefacility 102 established policies. In addition, there may be a pluralityof ways for the threat management facility 100 to protect theout-of-enterprise facility 102 mobile client facility (e.g., the clients144 D-F) that has an embedded endpoint computer security facility 152,such as by providing URI filtering in personal routers, using a webappliance as a DNS proxy, or the like. Mobile client facilities that arecomponents of the enterprise facility 102 but temporarily outsideconnectivity with the enterprise facility 102 network may be providedwith the same threat protection and policy control as client facilitiesinside the enterprise facility 102. In addition, mobile the clientfacilities may receive the same interactions to and from the threatmanagement facility 100 as client facilities inside the enterprisefacility 102, where the mobile client facilities may be considered avirtual extension of the enterprise facility 102, receiving all the sameservices via their embedded endpoint computer security facility 152.

Interactions between the threat management facility 100 and thecomponents of the enterprise facility 102, including mobile clientfacility extensions of the enterprise facility 102, may ultimately beconnected through the Internet 154. Threat management facility 100downloads and upgrades to the enterprise facility 102 may be passed fromthe firewalled networks of the threat management facility 100 through tothe endpoint computer security facility 152 equipped components of theenterprise facility 102. In turn the endpoint computer security facility152 components of the enterprise facility 102 may upload policy andaccess requests back across the Internet 154 and through to the threatmanagement facility 100. The Internet 154 however, is also the paththrough which threats may be transmitted from their source. Thesenetwork threats 104 may include threats from a plurality of sources,including without limitation, websites, e-mail, IM, VoIP, applicationsoftware, and the like. These threats may attempt to attack a mobileenterprise client facility (e.g., the clients 144B-F) equipped with anendpoint computer security facility 152, but in embodiments, as long asthe mobile client facility is embedded with an endpoint computersecurity facility 152, as described above, threats may have no bettersuccess than if the mobile client facility were inside the enterprisefacility 102.

However, if the mobile client facility were to attempt to connect intoan unprotected connection point, such as at a secondary location 108that is not a part of the enterprise facility 102, the mobile clientfacility may be required to request network interactions through thethreat management facility 100, where contacting the threat managementfacility 100 may be performed prior to any other network action. Inembodiments, the client facility's 144 endpoint computer securityfacility 152 may manage actions in unprotected network environments suchas when the client facility (e.g., client 144F) is in a secondarylocation 108 or connecting wirelessly to a non-enterprise facility 102wireless Internet connection, where the endpoint computer securityfacility 152 may dictate what actions are allowed, blocked, modified, orthe like. For instance, if the client facility's 144 endpoint computersecurity facility 152 is unable to establish a secured connection to thethreat management facility 100, the endpoint computer security facility152 may inform the user of such, and recommend that the connection notbe made. In the instance when the user chooses to connect despite therecommendation, the endpoint computer security facility 152 may performspecific actions during or after the unprotected connection is made,including running scans during the connection period, running scansafter the connection is terminated, storing interactions for subsequentthreat and policy evaluation, contacting the threat management facility100 upon first instance of a secured connection for further actions andor scanning, restricting access to network and local resources, or thelike. In embodiments, the endpoint computer security facility 152 mayperform specific actions to remediate possible threat incursions orpolicy violations during or after the unprotected connection.

The secondary location 108 may have no endpoint computer securityfacilities 152 as a part of its computer components, such as itsfirewalls 138B, servers 142B, clients 144G, hubs and routers 148C-D, andthe like. As a result, the computer components of the secondary location108 may be open to threat attacks, and become potential sources ofthreats, as well as any mobile enterprise facility clients 144B-F thatmay be connected to the secondary location's 108 network. In thisinstance, these computer components may now unknowingly spread a threatto other components connected to the network.

Some threats may not come directly from the Internet 154, such as fromnon-enterprise facility controlled mobile devices that are physicallybrought into the enterprise facility 102 and connected to the enterprisefacility 102 client facilities. The connection may be made from directconnection with the enterprise facility's 102 client facility, such asthrough a USB port, or in physical proximity with the enterprisefacility's 102 client facility such that a wireless facility connectioncan be established, such as through a Bluetooth connection. Thesephysical proximity threats 110 may be another mobile computing device, aportable memory storage device, a mobile communications device, or thelike, such as CDs and DVDs, memory sticks, flash drives, external harddrives, cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, digital cameras, point-to-pointdevices, digital picture frames, digital pens, navigation devices,tablets, appliances, and the like. A physical proximity threat 110 mayhave been previously infiltrated by network threats while connected toan unprotected network connection outside the enterprise facility 102,and when connected to the enterprise facility 102 client facility, posea threat. Because of their mobile nature, physical proximity threats 110may infiltrate computing resources in any location, such as beingphysically brought into the enterprise facility 102 site, connected toan enterprise facility 102 client facility while that client facility ismobile, plugged into an unprotected client facility at a secondarylocation 108, and the like. A mobile device, once connected to anunprotected computer resource, may become a physical proximity threat110. In embodiments, the endpoint computer security facility 152 mayprovide enterprise facility 102 computing resources with threatprotection against physical proximity threats 110, for instance, throughscanning the device prior to allowing data transfers, through securityvalidation certificates, through establishing a safe zone within theenterprise facility 102 computing resource to transfer data into forevaluation, and the like.

Having provided an overall context for threat detection, the descriptionnow turns to a brief discussion of an example of a computer system thatmay be used for any of the entities and facilities described above.

FIG. 2 illustrates a computer system. In general, the computer system200 may include a computing device 210 connected to a network 202, e.g.,through an external device 204. The computing device 210 may be orinclude any type of network endpoint or endpoints as described herein,e.g., with reference to FIG. 1 above. For example, the computing device210 may include a desktop computer workstation. The computing device 210may also or instead be any suitable device that has processes andcommunicates over a network 202, including without limitation a laptopcomputer, a desktop computer, a personal digital assistant, a tablet, amobile phone, a television, a set top box, a wearable computer (e.g.,watch, jewelry, or clothing), a home device (e.g., a thermostat or ahome appliance controller), just as some examples. The computing device210 may also or instead include a server, or it may be disposed on aserver.

The computing device 210 may be used for any of the entities describedin the threat management environment described above with reference toFIG. 1. For example, the computing device 210 may be a server, a clientan enterprise facility, a threat management facility, or any of theother facilities or computing devices described therein. In certainaspects, the computing device 210 may be implemented using hardware(e.g., in a desktop computer), software (e.g., in a virtual machine orthe like), or a combination of software and hardware, and the computingdevice 210 may be a standalone device, a device integrated into anotherentity or device, a platform distributed across multiple entities, or avirtualized device executing in a virtualization environment.

The network 202 may include any network described above, e.g., datanetwork(s) or internetwork(s) suitable for communicating data andcontrol information among participants in the computer system 200. Thismay include public networks such as the Internet, private networks, andtelecommunications networks such as the Public Switched TelephoneNetwork or cellular networks using third generation cellular technology(e.g., 3G or IMT-2000), fourth generation cellular technology (e.g., 4G,LTE. MT-Advanced, E-UTRA, etc.) or WiMax-Advanced (IEEE 802.16m)) and/orother technologies, as well as any of a variety of corporate area,metropolitan area, campus or other local area networks or enterprisenetworks, along with any switches, routers, hubs, gateways, and the likethat might be used to carry data among participants in the computersystem 200. The network 202 may also include a combination of datanetworks, and need not be limited to a strictly public or privatenetwork.

The external device 204 may be any computer or other remote resourcethat connects to the computing device 210 through the network 202. Thismay include threat management resources such as any of thosecontemplated above, gateways or other network devices, remote servers orthe like containing content requested by the computing device 210, anetwork storage device or resource, a device hosting malicious content,or any other resource or device that might connect to the computingdevice 210 through the network 202.

The computing device 210 may include a processor 212, a memory 214, anetwork interface 216, a data store 218, and one or more input/outputdevices 220. The computing device 210 may further include or be incommunication with peripherals 222 and other external input/outputdevices 224.

The processor 212 may be any as described herein, and in general becapable of processing instructions for execution within the computingdevice 210 or computer system 200. The processor 212 may include asingle-threaded processor or a multi-threaded processor. The processor212 may be capable of processing instructions stored in the memory 214or on the data store 218.

The memory 214 may store information within the computing device 210 orcomputer system 200. The memory 214 may include any volatile ornon-volatile memory or other computer-readable medium, including withoutlimitation a Random Access Memory (RAM), a flash memory, a Read OnlyMemory (ROM), a Programmable Read-only Memory (PROM), an Erasable PROM(EPROM), registers, and so forth. The memory 214 may store programinstructions, program data, executables, and other software and datauseful for controlling operation of the computing device 200 andconfiguring the computing device 200 to perform functions for a user.The memory 214 may include a number of different stages and types fordifferent aspects of operation of the computing device 210. For example,a processor may include on-board memory and/or cache for faster accessto certain data or instructions, and a separate, main memory or the likemay be included to expand memory capacity as desired.

The memory 214 may, in general, include a non-volatile computer readablemedium containing computer code that, when executed by the computingdevice 200 creates an execution environment for a computer program inquestion, e.g., code that constitutes processor firmware, a protocolstack, a database management system, an operating system, or acombination of the foregoing, and/or code that performs some or all ofthe steps set forth in the various flow charts and other algorithmicdescriptions set forth herein. While a single memory 214 is depicted, itwill be understood that any number of memories may be usefullyincorporated into the computing device 210. For example, a first memorymay provide non-volatile storage such as a disk drive for permanent orlong-term storage of files and code even when the computing device 210is powered down. A second memory such as a random access memory mayprovide volatile (but higher speed) memory for storing instructions anddata for executing processes. A third memory may be used to improveperformance by providing even higher speed memory physically adjacent tothe processor 212 for registers, caching and so forth.

The network interface 216 may include any hardware and/or software forconnecting the computing device 210 in a communicating relationship withother resources through the network 202. This may include remoteresources accessible through the Internet, as well as local resourcesavailable using short range communications protocols using, e.g.,physical connections (e.g., Ethernet), radio frequency communications(e.g., WiFi), optical communications, (e.g., fiber optics, infrared, orthe like), ultrasonic communications, or any combination of these orother media that might be used to carry data between the computingdevice 210 and other devices. The network interface 216 may, forexample, include a router, a modem, a network card, an infraredtransceiver, a radio frequency (RF) transceiver, a near fieldcommunications interface, a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tagreader, or any other data reading or writing resource or the like.

More generally, the network interface 216 may include any combination ofhardware and software suitable for coupling the components of thecomputing device 210 to other computing or communications resources. Byway of example and not limitation, this may include electronics for awired or wireless Ethernet connection operating according to the IEEE802.11 standard (or any variation thereof), or any other short or longrange wireless networking components or the like. This may includehardware for short range data communications such as Bluetooth or aninfrared transceiver, which may be used to couple to other localdevices, or to connect to a local area network or the like that is inturn coupled to a data network 202 such as the Internet. This may alsoor instead include hardware/software for a WiMax connection or acellular network connection (using, e.g., CDMA, GSM, LTE, or any othersuitable protocol or combination of protocols). The network interface216 may be included as part of the input/output devices 220 orvice-versa.

The data store 218 may be any internal memory store providing acomputer-readable medium such as a disk drive, an optical drive, amagnetic drive, a flash drive, or other device capable of providing massstorage for the computing device 210. The data store 218 may storecomputer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, andother data for the computing device 210 or computer system 200 in anon-volatile form for subsequent retrieval and use. For example, thedata store 218 may store without limitation one or more of the operatingsystem, application programs, program data, databases, files, and otherprogram modules or other software objects and the like.

The input/output interface 220 may support input from and output toother devices that might couple to the computing device 210. This may,for example, include serial ports (e.g., RS-232 ports), universal serialbus (USB) ports, optical ports, Ethernet ports, telephone ports, audiojacks, component audio/video inputs, HDMI ports, and so forth, any ofwhich might be used to form wired connections to other local devices.This may also or instead include an infrared interface, RF interface,magnetic card reader, or other input/output system for coupling in acommunicating relationship with other local devices. It will beunderstood that, while the network interface 216 for networkcommunications is described separately from the input/output interface220 for local device communications, these two interfaces may be thesame, or may share functionality, such as where a USB port is used toattach to a WiFi accessory, or where an Ethernet connection is used tocouple to a local network attached storage.

A peripheral 222 may include any device used to provide information toor receive information from the computing device 200. This may includehuman input/output (I/O) devices such as a keyboard, a mouse, a mousepad, a track ball, a joystick, a microphone, a foot pedal, a camera, atouch screen, a scanner, or other device that might be employed by theuser 230 to provide input to the computing device 210. This may also orinstead include a display, a speaker, a printer, a projector, a headsetor any other audiovisual device for presenting information to a user.The peripheral 222 may also or instead include a digital signalprocessing device, an actuator, or other device to support control orcommunication to other devices or components. Other I/O devices suitablefor use as a peripheral 222 include haptic devices, three-dimensionalrendering systems, augmented-reality displays, magnetic card readers,and so forth. In one aspect, the peripheral 222 may serve as the networkinterface 216, such as with a USB device configured to providecommunications via short range (e.g., BlueTooth, WiFi, Infrared, RF, orthe like) or long range (e.g., cellular data or WiMax) communicationsprotocols. In another aspect, the peripheral 222 may provide a device toaugment operation of the computing device 210, such as a globalpositioning system (GPS) device, a security dongle, or the like. Inanother aspect, the peripheral may be a storage device such as a flashcard, USB drive, or other solid state device, or an optical drive, amagnetic drive, a disk drive, or other device or combination of devicessuitable for bulk storage. More generally, any device or combination ofdevices suitable for use with the computing device 200 may be used as aperipheral 222 as contemplated herein.

Other hardware 226 may be incorporated into the computing device 200such as a co-processor, a digital signal processing system, a mathco-processor, a graphics engine, a video driver, and so forth. The otherhardware 226 may also or instead include expanded input/output ports,extra memory, additional drives (e.g., a DVD drive or other accessory),and so forth.

A bus 232 or combination of busses may serve as an electromechanicalplatform for interconnecting components of the computing device 200 suchas the processor 212, memory 214, network interface 216, other hardware226, data store 218, and input/output interface. As shown in the figure,each of the components of the computing device 210 may be interconnectedusing a system bus 232 or other communication mechanism forcommunicating information.

Methods and systems described herein can be realized using the processor212 of the computer system 200 to execute one or more sequences ofinstructions contained in the memory 214 to perform predetermined tasks.In embodiments, the computing device 200 may be deployed as a number ofparallel processors synchronized to execute code together for improvedperformance, or the computing device 200 may be realized in avirtualized environment where software on a hypervisor or othervirtualization management facility emulates components of the computingdevice 200 as appropriate to reproduce some or all of the functions of ahardware instantiation of the computing device 200.

FIG. 3 illustrates a threat management system as contemplated herein. Ingeneral, the system may include an endpoint 302, a firewall 304, aserver 306 and a threat management facility 308 coupled to one anotherdirectly or indirectly through a data network 305, all as generallydescribed above. Each of the entities depicted in FIG. 3 may, forexample, be implemented on one or more computing devices such as thecomputing device described above with reference to Fig.2. A number ofsystems may be distributed across these various components to supportthreat detection, such as a coloring system 310, a key management system312 and a heartbeat system 314, each of which may include softwarecomponents executing on any of the foregoing system components, and eachof which may communicate with the threat management facility 308 and anendpoint threat detection agent 320 executing on the endpoint 302 tosupport improved threat detection and remediation.

The coloring system 310 may be used to label or ‘color’ software objectsfor improved tracking and detection of potentially harmful activity. Thecoloring system 310 may, for example, label files, executables,processes, network communications, data sources and so forth with anysuitable label. A variety of techniques may be used to select staticand/or dynamic labels for any of these various software objects, and tomanage the mechanics of applying and propagating coloring information asappropriate. For example, a process may inherit a color from anapplication that launches the process. Similarly a file may inherit acolor from a process when it is created or opened by a process, and/or aprocess may inherit a color from a file that the process has opened.More generally, any type of labeling, as well as rules for propagating,inheriting, changing, or otherwise manipulating such labels, may be usedby the coloring system 310 as contemplated herein. A suitable coloringsystem is described in greater detail below with reference to FIG. 4.

The key management system 312 may support management of keys for theendpoint 302 in order to selectively permit or prevent access to contenton the endpoint 302 on a file-specific basis, a process-specific basis,an application-specific basis, a user-specific basis, or any othersuitable basis in order to prevent data leakage, and in order to supportmore fine-grained and immediate control over access to content on theendpoint 302 when a security compromise is detected. Thus, for example,if a particular process executing on the endpoint is compromised, orpotentially compromised or otherwise under suspicion, keys to thatprocess may be revoked in order to prevent, e.g., data leakage or othermalicious activity. A suitable key management system useful in thiscontext is described in greater detail below with reference to FIG. 5.

The heartbeat system 314 may be used to provide periodic or aperiodicinformation from the endpoint 302 or other system components aboutsystem health, security, status, and so forth. A heartbeat may beencrypted or plaintext, or some combination of these, and may becommunicated unidirectionally (e.g., from the endpoint 308 to the threatmanagement facility 308) or bidirectionally (e.g., between the endpoint302 and the server 306, or any other pair of system components) on anyuseful schedule. A suitable heartbeat system is described in greaterdetail below with reference to FIG. 6.

In general, these various monitoring and management systems maycooperate to provide improved threat detection and response. Forexample, the coloring system 310 may be used to evaluate when aparticular process is potentially opening inappropriate files, and apotential threat may be confirmed based on an interrupted heartbeat fromthe heartbeat system 314. The key management system 312 may then bedeployed to revoke keys to the process so that no further files can beopened, deleted or otherwise modified. More generally, the cooperationof these systems enables a wide variety of reactive measures that canimprove detection and remediation of potential threats to an endpoint.

FIG. 4 illustrates a system for behavioral tracking, coloring, andgeneration of indications of compromise (IOCs). In general, the system400 may include a number of entities participating in a threatmanagement process such as any of the entities and threat managementprocesses described herein. The threat management process may forexample employ techniques such as behavioral tracking, encryption,endpoint recording, reputation-based threat detection, behavioral-basedthreat detection, signature-based threat detection, and combinations ofthe foregoing, or any other suitable techniques for detecting threats toendpoints in a network.

In general, the system 400 may include a number of endpoints 402, 412and a threat management facility 404 in an enterprise 410, such as anyof the enterprises described above. An external analysis facility 406may analyze threat data and provide rules and the like for use by thethreat management facility 404 and endpoints 402, 412 in managingthreats to the enterprise 410. The threat management facility 404 mayreside in a local appliance (e.g., embedded within, or locally coupledto the endpoint 402), a virtual appliance (e.g., which could be run by aprotected set of systems on their own network system(s)), a privatecloud, a public cloud, and so forth. The analysis facility 406 may storelocally-derived threat information. The analysis facility 406 may alsoor instead receive threat information from a third party source 416 suchas MITRE Corporation or any other public, private, educational or otherorganization that gathers information on network threats and providesanalysis and threat detection information for use by others. Each ofthese components may be configured with suitable programming toparticipate in the various threat detection and management techniquescontemplated herein. The threat management facility 404 may monitor anystream of data from an endpoint 402 exclusively, or use the full contextof intelligence from the stream of all protected endpoints 402, 412 orsome combination of these.

The endpoint 402 may be any of the endpoints described herein, or anyother device or network asset that might join or participate in theenterprise 410 or otherwise operate on an enterprise network. This may,for example, include a server, a client such as a desktop computer or amobile computing device (e.g., a laptop computer, a wearable device, atablet, and the like), a cellular phone, a smart phone, or othercomputing device suitable for participating in the enterprise 410.

In general, the endpoint 402 may include any number of computing objectssuch as an object 418 labeled with a descriptor 420. While the termobject has a number of specific meanings in the art, and in particularin object-oriented programming, it will be understood that the term‘object’ as used herein is intended to be significantly broader, and mayinclude any data, process, file or combination of these includingwithout limitation any process, application, executable, script, dynamiclinked library, file, data, database, data source, data structure,function, resource locator (e.g., uniform resource locator (URL) orother uniform resource identifier (URI)), or the like that might bemanipulated by one of the computing devices described herein.

An object 418 may also or instead include a remote resource, such as aresource identified in a URL. That is, while the objects 418 in FIG. 4are depicted as residing on the endpoint 402, an object 418 may alsoreside elsewhere in the system 400, while still being labeled with adescriptor 420 and tracked by the monitor 421 of the endpoint 402. Theobject 418 may be an item that is performing an action or causing anevent, or the object 418 may be an item that is receiving the action orresult of an event (i.e., the item in the system 400 being acted upon).

Where the object 418 is data or includes data, the object 418 may beencrypted or otherwise protected, or the object 418 may be unencryptedor otherwise unprotected. The object 418 may be a process or othercomputing object that performs an action, which may include a singleevent or a collection or sequence of events taken by a process. Theobject 418 may also or instead include an item such as a file or linesof code that are executable to perform such actions. The object 418 mayalso or instead include a computing component upon which an action istaken, e.g., a system setting (e.g., a registry key or the like), a datafile, a URL, or the like. The object 418 may exhibit a behavior such asan interaction with another object or component of the system 400.

In one aspect, objects 418 may be described in terms of persistence. Theobject 418 may, for example, be a part of a process, and remainpersistent as long as that process is alive. The object 418 may insteadbe persistent across an endpoint 402 and remain persistent as long as anendpoint 402 is active or alive. The object 418 may instead be a globalobject having persistence outside of an endpoint 418, such as a URL or adata store. In other words, the object 418 may be a persistent objectwith persistence outside of the endpoint.

Although many if not most objects 418 will typically be benign objectsthat may be found on a normal, operating endpoint, an object 418 maycontain software associated with an advanced persistent threat (APT) orother malware that resides partially or entirely on the endpoint 402.The associated software may have reached the endpoint 402 in a varietyof ways, and may have been placed manually or automatically on theendpoint 402 by a malicious source. It will be understood that theassociated software may take any number of forms and have any number ofcomponents. For example, the associated software may include anexecutable file that can execute independently, or the associatedsoftware may be a macro, plug-in, or the like that executes withinanother application. Similarly, the associated software may manifest asone or more processes or threads executing on the endpoint 402. Further,the associated software may install from a file on the endpoint 402 (ora file remote from the endpoint 402), and the associated software maycreate one or more files such as data files or the like while executing.Associated software should be understood to generally include all suchfiles and processes except where a specific file or process is morespecifically noted.

A threat such as an APT may also take the form of an attack where noaltered or additional software is directly added or modified on theendpoint 402. Instead, an adversary may reuse existing software on thesystem 400 to perform the attacks. It is for this reason that simplyscanning for associated software may be insufficient for the detectionof APTs and it may be preferable to detect APTs based on the behavior ofthe software and associated objects 418 that are used by, for, and withthat software.

An object coloring system 414 may apply descriptors 420 to objects 418on the endpoint 402. This may be performed continuously by a backgroundprocess on the endpoint 402, or it may occur whenever an object 418 isinvolved in an action, such as when a process makes a call to anapplication programming interface (API) or takes some other action, orwhen a URL is used to initiate a network request, or when a read or awrite is performed on data in a file. This may also or instead include acombination of these approaches as well as other approaches, such as bylabeling a file or application when it is moved to the endpoint 402, orwhen the endpoint 402 is started up or instantiated. In general, theobject coloring system 414 may add, remove or change a color at anylocation and at any moment that can be practicably instrumented on acomputer system.

As noted above, the term ‘object’ as used herein is intended to includea wide range of computing objects and as such, the manner in whichparticular objects 418 are labeled or ‘colored’ with descriptors 420 mayvary significantly. Any object 418 that is performing an action may becolored at the time of and/or with a label corresponding to the action,or likewise any object 418 that is the target of the action may becolored at the time that it is used and/or with a label corresponding toa process or the like using the object 418. Furthermore, the operatingsystem runtime representation of the object 418 may be colored, or thepersistent object outside of the operating system may be colored (as isthe case for a File Handle or File Object within the operating system orthe actual file as stored in a file system), such as within anencryption header or other header applied to the file, or as part of adirectory attribute or any other persistent location within the file orfile system. A former coloring may be ephemerally tracked while theoperating system maintains the representation and the latter may persistlong after any reboots of the same operating system and likewise havemeaning when read or used by other endpoints 402. For processes, eachfile handle may be supplemented with a pointer or other mechanism forlocating a descriptor 420 for a particular object 420 that is a process.More specifically, each object 418 may be colored in any manner suitablefor appending information to that object 418 so that the correspondingdescriptor 420 can be retrieved and, where appropriate, updated.

The coloring system 414 may apply any suitable rules for adding andchanging descriptors 420 for objects 418. For example, when a processwith a certain descriptor accesses data with a different descriptor, thedescriptor for the process may be updated to correspond to the data, orthe descriptor for the data may be updated to correspond to the process,or some combination of these. Any action by or upon an object 418 maytrigger a coloring rule so that descriptors 420 can be revised at anyrelevant time(s) during processing.

In one aspect, colors will not explicitly indicate a compromisedsecurity state or other good/bad types of distinctions (although theymay be adapted to this use). Instead, colors may record some knowninformation or understanding about an object 418, such as a source, apurpose, and so forth. In this context, colors will not be used to labelactual or potential security compromises, but to identifyinconsistencies among interacting objects 418, and to restrict orcontrol access and use accordingly. For example, where an endpoint usesfile-system-based encryption as described herein, a process that iscolored as exposed to external resources (e.g., the Internet) may beprohibited from accessing cleartext data for protected files. Colors canalso be used in other contexts such as intrusion prevention, routingrules, and detection of odd or questionable behavior.

In one aspect, colors may be implemented as flags associated withobjects 418 that provide a short hand cache of potentially relevantinformation. While this information could also be obtained for an object418 through a careful inspection of related activity logs or other datarecording activities, the use of a cache of flags for coloringinformation makes the coloring information directly available andimmediately actionable, as distinguished from post hoc forensicactivities that are otherwise supported by data logging.

In one aspect, colors as contemplated herein may fall into two differentcategories: static colors and dynamic colors. Static colors may beexplicitly applied based on, e.g., a controlling application. Forexample, a static color may specify a status of an application or data,or an associated type of application (e.g., productivity, mail client,messaging, browser, word processing, financial, spreadsheet, etc.). Inthis context, a process will generally inherit static colors from asource executable, and will permit inferences for appropriate behaviorand related processes. Dynamic colors may be assigned based on directobservation of executing processes, and may not be inherited ortransferred among processes (although the presence of a dynamic colormay be used to draw another coloring inference upon interaction withanother process). Thus, the inheritance of colors may depend in partupon the type of color that is applied, or upon explicit inheritancerules provided for a particular color.

A descriptor 420 may take a variety of forms, and may in general includeany information selected for relevance to threat detection. This may,for example, be a simple categorization of data or processes such astrusted or untrusted. For example, in one embodiment described herein,data and processes are labeled as either ‘IN’ (e.g., trusted) or ‘OUT’(e.g., untrusted). The specific content of the label is unimportant, andthis may be a binary flag, text string, encrypted data or otherhuman-readable and/or machine-readable identifier, provided that thedescriptor 420 can facilitate discrimination among labeled files—in thisexample, between trusted objects 418 and untrusted objects 418 so that,e.g., trusted data can be selectively decrypted or encrypted for usewith trusted processes. Similarly, data may be labeled as corporate dataor private data, with similar type-dependent processing provided. Forexample, private data may be encrypted with a key exclusively controlledby the data owner, while corporate data may be encrypted using aremotely managed key ring for an enterprise operated by the corporation.

In another aspect, the descriptor 420 may provide a multi-tiered orhierarchical description of the object 418 including any informationuseful for characterizing the object 418 in a threat management context.For example, in one useful configuration the descriptor 420 may includea type or category, static threat detection attributes, and an explicitidentification. The type or category for the object 418 may be anycategory or the like that characterizes a general nature or use of theobject 418 as inferred from behavior and other characteristics. Thismay, for example, include categories such as ‘game,’financial,“application,”electronic mail,' image,' ‘video,’browser,“antivirus,' and so forth. The category may be more granular, ormay include hierarchical categories such as‘application:spreadsheet,”application:word_processing,’ and so forth.Such colors may be directly inferred from a single action, a sequence ofactions, or a combination of actions and other colors, including, e.g.,colors of processes and files related to a particular action, or otherobjects 418 that provide context for a particular action or group ofactions. One or more colors may also or instead be explicitly providedby a user or a process, or otherwise automatically or manuallyattributed to computer objects as contemplated herein.

The static threat detection attributes may be any readily ascertainablecharacteristics of the object 418 useful in threat detection. This may,for example, include an antivirus signature, a hash, a file size, fileprivileges, a process user, a path or director, and so forth. Staticthreat detection attributes may also include attributes that are derivedby or supplied from other sources. For example, static threat detectionattributes may include a reputation for an object 418, which may beexpressed in any suitable or useful level of granularity such as withdiscrete categories (trusted/untrusted/unknown) or with a numericalscore or other quantitative indicator. The explicit identification may,in general, be what an object 418 calls itself, e.g., a file name orprocess name.

Some actions may transfer colors from the subject of the action to thetarget of the action. For example, when a process creates sub-processes,the sub-processes may inherit the colors of its parent(s). By way ofanother example, when a process is initially loaded from an executable,it may inherit the color(s) stored in the file system for or with theexecutable.

In general, the descriptor 420 may be provided in any suitable format.The descriptor 420 may for example be formed as a vector of binary flagsor other attributes that form the ‘color’ or description of an object418. The descriptor 420 may also, where appropriate, include scalarquantities for certain properties. For example, it may be relevant howmany times a system file was accessed, how many file handles a processhas open, how many times a remote resource was requested or how long aremote resource is connected, and this information may be suitablyincluded in the descriptor 420 for use in coloring objects with thecoloring system 414 and applying rules for IOC detection by the IOCmonitor 421.

An indication of compromise (IOC) monitor 421 may be provided toinstrument the endpoint 402 so that any observable actions by orinvolving various objects 418 can be detected. As with the coloringsystem 414, it will be understood that the types of observable actionswill vary significantly, and the manner in which the endpoint 402 isinstrumented to detect such actions will depend on the particular typeof object 418. For example, for files or the like, an API for a filesystem may be used to detect reads, writes, and other access (e.g.,open, read, write, move, copy, delete, etc.), and may be configured toreport to or otherwise initiate monitoring of the action taken with thefile through the file system. As another example, kernel objects may beinstrumented at the corresponding object handle or in some other manner.As a further example, a kernel driver may be used for intercepting aprocess startup. While a wide variety of objects are contemplatedherein, one of ordinary skill in the art may create suitableinstrumentation for any computing object so that it may be monitored bythe IOC monitor 421.

It will be noted that suitable instrumentation may be used for a varietyof functions and circumstances. For example, instrumentation mayusefully track requests for network access or other actions back to aparticular application or process, or data payloads back to a particularfile or data location. One of ordinary skill in the art can readilyimplement suitable traces and/or logging for any such information thatmight be useful in a particular IOC monitoring operation.

In general, the IOC monitor 421 applies rules to determine when there isan IOC 422 suitable for reporting to a threat management facility 404.It will be understood that an endpoint 402 may, in suitablecircumstances and with appropriate information, take immediate localaction to remediate a threat. However, the monitor 421 mayadvantageously accumulate a sequence of actions, and still moreadvantageously may identify inconsistencies or unexpected behaviorwithin a group of actions with improved sensitivity by comparingdescriptors 420 for various objects 418 involved in relevant actions andevents. In this manner, rules may be applied based upon the descriptors420 that better discriminate malicious activity while reducing thequantity and frequency of information that must be communicated to aremote threat management facility 404. At the same time, all of therelevant information provided by the descriptors 420 can be sent in anIOC 422 when communicating a potential issue to the threat managementfacility 404. For example, during the course of execution, a specificprocess (as evidenced by its observed actions) may be assigned colordescriptors indicating that it is a browser process. Further, thespecific process may be assigned an attribute indicating that it hasexposed itself to external URLs or other external data. Subsequently,the same process may be observed to be taking an action suitable for aninternal or system process, such as opening up shared memory to anotherprocess that has coloring descriptions indicating that it is a systemprocess. When this last action is observed, an inconsistency in thevarious color descriptors between the subject of the action—theexternally exposed browser process—and the target of the action mayresult in a well-defined IOC, which may be directly processed withimmediate local action taken. The IOC may also or instead be reportedexternally as appropriate.

Thus, an endpoint 402 in an enterprise 410 may be instrumented with acoloring system 414 and monitor 421 to better detect potentiallymalicious activity using descriptors 420 that have been selected forrelevance to threat detection along with a corresponding set of rulesdeveloped for the particular descriptors 420 that are being used tolabel or color various objects 418. By way of example, the object 418may be a web browser that starts off being colored as a ‘browser’ and an‘internet facing’ application. Based on this descriptor 420, a range ofbehaviors or actions may be considered normal, such as accessing remotenetwork resources. However, if an object 418 colored with thisdescriptor 420 attempted to elevate privileges for a process, or toaccess a registry or system files, then this inconsistency in action maytrigger a rule violation and result in an IOC 422.

In general, any action or series of actions that cumulatively invoke aparticular reporting or action rule may be combined into an IOC 422 andcommunicated to the threat management facility 404. For example, an IOC422 may include a malicious or strange behavior, or an indication of amalicious or strange behavior. The IOC 422 may be a normalized IOC thatexpresses one or more actions in a platform independent manner. That is,the IOC 422 may express a malicious behavior or suspected maliciousbehavior without reference to platform-specific information such asdetails of an operating system (e.g., iOS, MacOS, Windows, Android,Linux, and so forth), hardware, applications, naming conventions, and soforth. Thus, a normalized IOC may be suitable for identifying aparticular threat across multiple platforms, and may include platformindependent processes, actions, or behaviors, or may express suchprocess, actions, or behaviors in a platform independent manner. Thenormalized IOC may be generated from the IOC 422, e.g., it may be aconverted version of the IOC 422 suitable for use with multipleplatforms, or it may simply be any IOC 422 that has been created in aplatform independent form. Process colorization (i.e., using thecoloring system 414) as described herein may be used to create anormalized IOC.

In general, a threat management facility 404 for the enterprise 410 mayinclude an IOC collector 426 that receives the IOC 422 from the endpoint402 and determines an appropriate action. This may include any suitableremedial action, or where one or more IOCs 422 are inconclusive,continued monitoring or increased monitoring as appropriate.

The threat management facility 404 may provide a variety of threatmanagement or monitoring tools 424, any of which may be deployed inresponse to IOCs 422 collected by the IOC collector 426. These tools 424may include without limitation a scanning engine,whitelisting/blacklisting, reputation analysis, web filtering, anemulator, protection architecture, live protection, runtime detection,APT detection, network antivirus products, IOC detection, access logs, aheartbeat, a sandbox or quarantine system, and so forth.

The analysis facility 406 may provide a remote processing resource foranalyzing malicious activities and creating rules 434 suitable fordetecting IOCs 422 based on objects 420 and descriptors 420. It isgenerally contemplated that suitable attributes of certain descriptors418 and one or more rules 434 may be developed together so that objects418 can be appropriately labeled with descriptors 420 that permitinvocation of rules 434 and creation of IOCs 422 at appropriate times.The analysis facility 406 may include a variety of analysis tools 428including, without limitation, tools for regular expression,whitelisting/blacklisting, crowd sourcing, identifiers, and so forth.The analysis tools 428 may also or instead include information and toolssuch as URL look-ups, genotypes, identities, file look-up, reputations,and so forth. The analysis facility 406 may also provide numerousrelated functions such as an interface for receiving information on new,unknown files or processes, and for testing of such code or content in asandbox on the analysis facility 406.

The analysis facility 406 may also or instead include a compromisedetector 430, where the compromise detector 430 is configured to receivenew threat information for analysis and creation of new rules anddescriptors as appropriate, as well as corresponding remedial actions.The compromise detector 430 may include any tools described herein orotherwise known in the art for detecting compromises or evaluating newthreats in an enterprise 410.

In general, a rule 434 may be manually created with correspondinghuman-readable semantics, e.g., where a process is labeled as a browserprocess or other category or type that can be interpreted by a human. Itshould, however, be appreciated that the compromise detector 430 mayalso be configured to automatically generate descriptors 420 and rules434 suitable for distribution to a threat management facility 404 and anendpoint 402. In this latter mode, the meaning of a particulardescriptor 420 may not have a readily expressible human-readablemeaning. Thus, it will be understood that attributes selected forrelevance to threat detection may include conventional attributes, aswell as attributes without conventional labels or meaning except in thecontext of a particular, computer-generated rule for threat detection.

In general, the analysis facility 406 may be within an enterprise 410,or the analysis facility 406 may be external to the enterprise 410 andadministered, for example, by a trusted third party. Further, athird-party source 416 may provide additional threat data 438 oranalyses for use by the analysis facility 406 and the threat managementfacility 404. The third-party resource 416 may be a data resource thatprovides threat data 438 and analyses, where the threat data 438 is anydata that is useful in detecting, monitoring, or analyzing threats. Forexample, the threat data 438 may include a database of threats,signatures, and the like. By way of example, the third-party resource416 may be a resource provided by The MITRE Corporation.

The system 400 may include a reputation engine 440 storing a pluralityof reputations 442. The reputation engine 440 may include a reputationmanagement system for the generation, analysis, identification, editing,storing, etc., of reputations 442. The reputation engine 440 may includereputation-based filtering, which may be similar to the reputationfiltering discussed above with reference to FIG. 1. The reputationengine 440 may be located on the threat management facility 404 or theendpoint 402 as shown in FIG. 4, or the reputation engine 440 may belocated elsewhere in the system 400. The reputation engine 440 mayreceive an IOC 422 or a stream of IOCs 422, and may generate or utilizereputations 442 for the IOCs 422. The reputation engine 440 may also orinstead receive actions, behaviors, events, interactions, and so forth,and may generate or utilize reputations 442 for any of the foregoing.The reputation engine 440 may generate or revise a reputation 442 basedon behaviors, actions, events, interactions, IOCs 422, other reputations442, a history of events, data, rules, state of encryption, colors, andso forth. The reputation engine 440 may utilize a third-party resource,e.g., for the third-party resource's reputation data.

The reputations 442 may include reputations for any of the objects 418as described herein. In general, the reputations 442 may relate to thetrustworthiness of the objects 418 or an attribute thereof (e.g., thesource of the object 418, a behavior of the object 418, another objectinteracting with the object 418, and so forth). The reputations 442 mayinclude lists of known sources of malware or known suspicious objects418. The reputations 442 may also or instead include lists of known safeor trusted resources or objects 418. The reputations 442 may be storedin a reputations database included on the reputation engine 440 orlocated elsewhere in the system 400. The reputations 442 may beexpressed in any suitable or useful level of granularity such as withdiscrete categories (e.g., trusted, untrusted, unknown, malicious, safe,etc.) or with a numerical score or other quantitative indicator. Thereputations 442 may also be scaled.

In general, in the system 400 of FIG. 4, a malicious activity on theendpoint 402 may be detected by the IOC monitor 421, and a correspondingIOC 422 may be transmitted to the threat management facility 404 forremedial action as appropriate. The threat management facility 404 mayfurther communicate one or more IOCs 422 to the analysis facility 406for additional analyses and/or resolution of inconclusive results. Otherdetails and variations are provided below. While the use of coloring andIOCs as contemplated herein can improve threat detection and remediationin a number of ways, the system 400 can be further improved withgranular control over access to endpoint data using an encryptionsystem. A system for key-based management of processes and files on anendpoint is now discussed in greater detail.

FIG. 5 illustrates a system for encryption management. Generally, thesystem 500 may include endpoints 502, an administration host 504, and athreat management facility 506, which may include policy manager 508 andkey manager 510. The system 500 may provide for the management of users512, policies 514, keys 516 (e.g., disposed on key rings 518), andendpoints 502 (e.g., from the administration host 504). The system 500may utilize various storage and processing resources, which may bedisposed in a cloud or the like.

The endpoints 502 may be any of the endpoints as described herein, e.g.,with reference to the other figures. The endpoints 502 may also orinstead include other end user devices and other devices to be managed.The endpoints 502 may include a web browser for use by the users 512,with supporting cryptographic functions implemented using cryptographiclibraries in the web browser. The endpoints 502 may communicate with theother components of the system 500 using any suitable communicationinterface, which may include Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption,Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS), and so forth for additionalsecurity.

The endpoints 502 may include objects as described herein. For example,the endpoints 502 may include processes 520 and files 522. The processes520 may be labeled (e.g., by a coloring system using descriptors asdescribed above) in such a manner that the process is ‘IN,’ where theprocess 520 is in compliance with policies 514 administered for theendpoint 502 from a remote threat management facility 506, or theprocess is ‘OUT,’ where the process 520 is out of compliance with apolicy (or a number of policies) in the policies 514 for an enterprise.This may provide IN processes 520A and OUT processes 520B as shown inFIG. 5. The files 522 may be similarly labeled by a coloring system withdescriptors that identify each file 522 as IN, where the file 522complies with the policies 514 and is accordingly encrypted using, e.g.,a remotely managed key ring 518, or the file is OUT, where the file 522does not conform to the policies 514 and is accordingly not encryptedusing the remotely managed key ring 518. This may provide IN files 522Aand OUT files 522B as shown in FIG. 5. One skilled in the art willrecognize that other objects of the endpoint 502 or other components ofthe system 500 may be labeled in a similar manner where they are eitherIN or OUT. By coloring objects in this manner and basing key access onthe corresponding color, the “IN” software objects may operate in aprotected environment that objectively appears to be in compliance withthe policies 514. Other files and processes may still be used on theendpoint 502, but they will operate in an “OUT” or unprotectedenvironment that cannot obtain access to any of the “IN” content orfunctionality.

In an implementation, the system 500 may include determining whether anendpoint 502 is IN or OUT or whether a component of the endpoint 502 isIN or OUT, which may be based upon a set of rules (e.g., the rulesoutlined herein) or policies such as the policies 514 described herein.In some aspects, if the entire endpoint 502 is OUT—that is, out ofcompliance with one or more policies 514, the endpoint 502 will not havekey access or access to any protected content. Conversely, if theendpoint 502 is IN, the endpoint 502 may have access to protectedcontent. Thus in one aspect, the notion of IN/OUT may be applied at anendpoint level, and data protection may be a consequence of endpointprotection. Endpoint protection may also or instead be applied at a moregranular level, e.g., by determining whether executables, processes 520,files 522, etc., on the endpoint 502 are IN or OUT, which may be basedupon rules or policies 514 as described herein.

The administration host 504 may include a web browser, which may includea cryptography library 524 and a web user interface (e.g., HTML,JavaScript, etc.). An administrator may utilize the web user interfaceto administer a key management system and perform administrativefunctions such as creating and distributing keys 516, establishingsecurity policies, creating key hierarchies and rules, and so forth. Theendpoint 502 may also include a cryptographic library 524 implementingcryptographic protocols for using key material in the key ring 518 toencrypt and decrypt data as needed.

The threat management facility 506 may include any of the threatmanagement facilities or similar systems described herein. In general,the threat management facility 506 may include a policy manager 508 andkey manager 510. Alternatively, one or more of the policy manager 508and key manager 510 may be located elsewhere on a network.

The policy manager 508 may implement one or more policies 514, andmaintain, distribute, and monitor the policies for devices in anenterprise. The policies 514 may include any policies 514 relating tosecure operation of endpoints 502 in an enterprise. This may, forexample, include hardware configuration policies, software configurationpolicies, communication policies, update policies, or any other policiesrelating to, e.g., the configuration of an endpoint 502, communicationsby an endpoint 502, software executing on an endpoint 502 and so forth.Policies 514 may include usage criteria based on, e.g., signatures,indications of compromise, reputation, user identity, and so forth. Withrespect to the key management system contemplated herein, the policies514 may include a cryptographic protocol design, key servers, userprocedures, and other relevant protocols, or these cryptographicprotocols may be provided elsewhere for use by the policy manager 508.The policies 514 may also include any rules for compliance includingthose mentioned above or any other suitable rules or algorithms that canbe applied to determine whether objects and components are ‘IN’ or ‘OUT’as contemplated herein.

The key manager 510 may be part of the threat management facility 506,or it may be remotely managed elsewhere, e.g., in a remote cloudresource or the like. The key manager 510 may also or instead bedisposed on the administration host 504 and one or more endpoints 502 ina manner independent of the threat management facility 506. In thismanner, all cryptographic operations may be isolated from the threatmanagement facility 506 and instead may be performed by a web browser orthe like executing on the administration host 504 or an endpoint 502.The key manager 510 may manage the keys 516, including managing thegeneration, exchange, storage, use, and replacement of keys 516. The keymanager 510 may include a key ring 518, where the keys 516 are disposedon the key ring 518 using one root key 526. The key manager 510 may alsoor instead include a variety of key management and other secureprocesses, including without limitation, administrator registration,establishing trust to endpoints 502, key distribution to endpoints 502,policy deployment, endpoint status reporting, and local key backup.

The users 512 may have full access to encrypted data. Alternatively, theusers 512 may have limited access to encrypted data, or no access toencrypted data. Access may be limited to users 512 using endpoints 502that are deemed ‘IN’ by the system, as well as to processes 520 that areIN, as further described herein.

The keys 210 may include cryptographic keys in a cryptosystem, i.e.,decryption keys. In one aspect, the keys 210 may be disposed on one keyring 218 using one root key 220. In general, the keys 210 may be createdand managed using, e.g., symmetric key technology, asymmetric keytechnology, or any other key technology or combination of keytechnologies suitable for securing data in an enterprise including, forexample the Data Encryption Standard (DES), Triple DES, AdvancedEncryption Standard (AES), and so forth. The cryptosystem may also orinstead include any suitable public key infrastructure or the likesupporting the distribution and use of keys for encryption, digitalsignatures, and so forth.

The key ring 518 may facilitate simplified management of the system 500.For example, by reducing the data protection system down to a single keyring 518, the system can eliminate or reduce the overhead for managementof keys 516. In one aspect, all of the data on a key ring 518 isprotected by one root key 526. By reducing the data protection systemdown to a single key ring 518 protected by one root key 526, allprivileged users 512 on uncompromised platforms can have access to allprotected data. In this embodiment, data is either ‘IN’ (i.e.,encrypted), or it's ‘OUT’ (i.e., not encrypted). In one aspect, thedefault system does not include any additional shade of access control.

The cryptography library 524 may be disposed on the administration host504 as shown in FIG. 5. The cryptography library 524 may also bedisposed on the endpoint 502, e.g., in a web browser, or it may bedisposed on another component of the system 500, or any combination ofthese. The cryptographic library 524 may be installed by anadministrator. In general, key material 530 from the key ring 518 may bestored in a cache 532 on the endpoint 502 within any suitable memory onthe endpoint 502 for use in encryption and decryption as contemplatedherein. As noted above, an enterprise that systematically uses coloringand indications of compromise can be improved through the use of a keymanagement system as contemplated herein. This system may be stillfurther improved with the addition of a heartbeat system thatcommunicates heartbeats from an endpoint containing health and statusinformation about the endpoint. A suitable heartbeat system is nowdescribed in greater detail.

FIG. 6 illustrates a threat management system using heartbeats. Ingeneral, a system 600 may include an endpoint 602, a gateway 604, athreat management system 606, and an enterprise management system 608that manages an enterprise including the endpoint 602, the gateway 604,and one or more additional endpoints 610. Each of these components maybe configured with suitable programming to participate in the detectionand remediation of an advanced persistent threat (APT) or other malwarethreat as contemplated herein. Although the term “gateway” is used forthe device between an endpoint and an external network, it will beappreciated that this device may also or instead include a switch,router, firewall, and/or other network elements, any of which may beincluded in the “gateway” as that term is used herein.

The endpoint 602 may be any of the endpoints described herein, or anyother device or network asset that might join or participate in anenterprise network. The endpoint 602 may contain a threat 612 such as anadvanced persistent threat, virus, or similar malware that resides onthe endpoint 602. The threat 612 may have reached the endpoint 602 in avariety of ways, and may have been placed manually or automatically onthe endpoint 602 by a malicious source. It will be understood that thethreat 612 may take any number of forms and have any number ofcomponents. For example, the threat 612 may include an executable filethat can execute independently, or the threat 612 may be a macro,plug-in, or the like that executes within another application.Similarly, the threat 612 may manifest as one or more processes orthreads executing on the endpoint 602. The threat 612 may install from afile on the endpoint 602 or a file remote from the endpoint 602, and thethreat 612 may create one or more other files such as data files or thelike while executing. Advanced persistent threats can be particularlydifficult to detect and remediate, and the systems and methodscontemplated herein can advantageously provide improved sensitivity tosuch threats, as well as enabling improved remediation strategies.However, the systems and methods contemplated herein may also or insteadbe used to detect and remediate other types of malware threats. As such,in this context references to a particular type of threat (e.g., anadvanced persistent threat) should be understood to generally includeany type of malware or other threat to an endpoint or enterprise unlessa more specific threat or threat type is explicitly provided orotherwise clear from the context.

The threat 612 may be analyzed by one or more threat countermeasures onthe endpoint 602 such as a whitelisting filter 614 that approves eachitem of code before executing on the endpoint 602 and prevents executionof non-whitelisted code. The endpoint 602 may also include an antivirusengine 616 or other malware detection software that uses any of avariety of techniques to identify malicious code by reputation or othercharacteristics. A runtime detection engine 618 may also monitorexecuting code to identify possible threats. More generally, any of avariety of threat detection techniques may be applied to the threat 612before and during execution. In general, a threat 612 may evade theseand other security measures and begin executing as a process 620 on theendpoint 602.

Network traffic 622 from the process 620 may be monitored and logged bya traffic monitor 624 on the endpoint 602. The traffic monitor 624 may,for example, log a time and a source of each network request from theendpoint 602. Where the endpoint 602 is within an enterprise network,the network traffic 622 may pass through the gateway 604 in transit to adata network such as the Internet. While the gateway 604 may belogically or physically positioned between the endpoint 602 and anexternal data network, it will be understood that other configurationsare possible. For example, where the endpoint 602 is associated with anenterprise network but operating remotely, the endpoint 602 may form aVPN or other secure tunnel or the like to the gateway 604 for use of athreat management system 606, enterprise management system 608, and anyother enterprise resources.

The endpoint 602 may use a heartbeat 626 to periodically and securelycommunicate status to the gateway 604. The heartbeat 626 may be createdby a health monitor 628 within the endpoint 602, and may be transmittedto a remote health monitor 630, for example, at the gateway 604. Thehealth monitor 628 may monitor system health in a variety of ways, suchas by checking the status of individual software items executing on theendpoint 602, checking that antivirus and other security software is upto date (e.g., with current virus definition files and so forth) andrunning correctly, checking the integrity of cryptographic key stores,checking for compliance with enterprise security policies, and checkingany other hardware or software components of the endpoint 602 asnecessary or helpful for health monitoring. The health monitor 628 maythus condition the issuance of a heartbeat 626 on a satisfactory statusof the endpoint 602 according to any suitable criteria, enterprisepolices, and other evaluation techniques. The remote health monitor 630may also or instead be provided at the threat management facility 650,for example as part of the threat management system 606 or theenterprise management system 608.

The heartbeat 626 may be secured in any suitable manner so that thehealth monitor 630 can reliably confirm the source of the heartbeat 626and the status of the endpoint 602. To this end, the heartbeat 626 maybe cryptographically signed or secured using a private key so that themonitor 630 can authenticate the origin of the heartbeat 626 using acorresponding public key. In one aspect, the heartbeat 626 may include acombination of plaintext information and encrypted information, such aswhere the status information for the endpoint is provided in plaintextwhile a digital signature for authentication is cryptographicallysecured. In another aspect, all of the information in the heartbeat 626may be encrypted.

In one aspect, a key vault 632 may be provided on the endpoint tosupport cryptographic functions associated with a secure heartbeat. Anobfuscated key vault 632 may support numerous useful functions,including without limitation, private key decryption, asymmetricsigning, and validation with a chain of trust to a specific rootvalidation certificate. A variety of suitable key management andcryptographic systems are known in the art and may be usefully employedto a support the use of a secure heartbeat as contemplated herein. Thesystem may support a secure heartbeat in numerous ways. For example, thesystem may ensure that signing and decryption keys can only be used inauthorized ways and inside an intended Access Control mechanism. Thesystem may use “anti-lifting” techniques to ensure that a signing keycan only be used when the endpoint is healthy. The system may ensurethat attacking software cannot, without first reverse-engineering thekey vault 632, extract the original key material. The system may alsousefully ensure that an attacker cannot undetectably replace the publickeys in a root certificate store, either directly or indirectly, such asin an attack that tries to cause the code to validate against adifferent set of root keys without directly replacing any keys in theroot store.

A robust heartbeat 626 may usefully provide defensive mechanisms againstreverse engineering of obfuscated content (e.g., the private keymaterial stored in key vault 632, the code used to validate the correctrunning of the remainder of the systems as part of the heartbeat 626code itself) and any anti-lifting protections to prevent malware fromdirectly using the endpoint 602 (or the health monitor 628 on theendpoint 602) to continue to send out signed heartbeat packets (e.g.stating that “all is well” with the endpoint) after security mechanismshave been impaired, disabled, or otherwise compromised in any way.Lifting in this manner by malicious code can be materially mitigated byproviding statistical validation (e.g., with checksums of code) of callstacks, calling processes, and core processes. Likewise, statisticalchecks as well as checksum integrations into the cryptographiccalculations may protect against code changes in the heartbeat 626 codeitself.

A variety of useful techniques may be employed to improve security ofthe key vault 632 and the heartbeat 626. For example, the system may usedomain shifting so that original key material is inferred based onhardware and software properties readily available to the key vault 632,and to ensure that key material uses non-standard or varying algorithms.Software properties may, for example, include readily determined systemvalues such as hashes of nearby code. In another aspect, the keys may bedomain shifted in a manner unique to the endpoint 602 so that the mannerof statistical validation of call stacks and core software is unique tothe endpoint 602. Further the key vault may be provisioned so that apublic key stored in the key vault 632 is signed with a certificate (orinto a certificate chain) that can be externally validated by a networkappliance or other trusted third party or directly by the healthmonitor.

The heartbeat 626 may encode any useful status information, and may betransmitted from the endpoint 602 on any desired schedule including anyperiodic, aperiodic, random, deterministic, or other schedule.Configured in this manner, the heartbeat 626 can provide secure,tamper-resistant instrumentation for status of the endpoint 602, and inparticular an indication that the endpoint 602 is online anduncompromised. A disappearance of the heartbeat 626 from the endpoint602 may indicate that the endpoint 602 has been compromised; howeverthis may also simply indicate that the endpoint 602 has been powered offor intentionally disconnected from the network. Thus, other criteria maybe used in addition to the disappearance or interruption of theheartbeat 626 to more accurately detect malicious software. Some suchtechniques are described below, but it will be understood that this mayinclude any supplemental information that might tend to make an attackon the endpoint 602 more or less likely. For example, if the heartbeat626 is interrupted but the endpoint 602 is still sourcing networktraffic, then an inference might suitably be made that the endpoint 602is compromised.

The threat management system 606 may, in general, be any of the threatmanagement systems described herein. The enterprise management system608 generally provides tools and interfaces for administration of theenterprise and various endpoints 610 and other resources or assetsattached thereto. It will be understood that, the functions of thethreat management system 606 and the enterprise management system 608may vary, and general threat management and administration functions maybe distributed in a variety of ways between and among these and othercomponents. This is generally indicated in FIG. 6 as a threat managementfacility 650 that includes the threat management system 606 and theenterprise management system 608. It will be understood that either orboth of these system may be administered by third parties on behalf ofthe enterprise, or managed completely within the enterprise, or somecombination of these, all without departing from the scope of thisdisclosure. It will similarly be understood that a reference herein to athreat management facility 650 is not intended to imply any particularcombination of functions or components, and shall only be understood toinclude such functions or components as explicitly stated in aparticular context, or as necessary to provide countermeasures foradvanced persistent threats as contemplated herein. It also should beunderstood that the heartbeat may be monitored and/or managed by thethreat management system 606, the enterprise management system 608, oranother component of the threat management facility 650.

The system 600 may include a certificate authority 660 or similar trustauthority or the like (shown as a “trusted third party” in the figure).In order to provide a meaningfully secure heartbeat 626, the heartbeat626 may be secured with reference to a trusted authority such as acertificate authority 660 that can issue cryptographic certificatesallowing other entities to rely on assertions about identity (e.g., byenabling verification with a trusted third party), and to enablecryptographically secure communications. The cryptographic techniquesfor creating and using such certificates and relationships are wellknown, and are not repeated here. The certificate authority 660 may beadministered by the enterprise management system 608 or some otherinternal resource of the enterprise, or the certificate authority 660may be administered by a trusted third party such as any of a variety ofcommercially available certificate authorities or the like. Thus, thecertificate authority 660, or some other similar cloud service or thelike, may operate as a security broker to register, e.g., endpoints 602,610, the gateway 604, the threat management facility 650, and so forth,and provide cryptographic material for each of the other trustingentities to securely communicate with one another.

Once registered with the certificate authority 660 in this fashion, theheartbeat may be used to establish trust between the endpoint 602 andother entities, and to validate the source of the heartbeat 626 when itis received. More generally, a heartbeat 626 secured in this manner mayprovide an encrypted channel between network entities such as anendpoint 602 and the gateway 604 (or a firewall or the like). The natureof the communication may provide a technique for validating the source,as well as obfuscating the contents with encryption. Thus when, forexample, the endpoint 602 provides information about a good/healthystate or a bad/compromised state, the recipient may rely on this stateinformation and act accordingly.

FIG. 7 shows an architecture for endpoint protection in an enterprisenetwork security system. In general, an endpoint may include aprocessing environment 702, a file system 706, a threat monitor 720 anda key wrapper 730.

The processing environment 702 may, for example, be any environment suchas an operating system or the like suitable for executing one or moreprocesses 704.

Each process 704 may be an instance of a computer program, portion of acomputer program or other code executing within the processingenvironment 702. A process 704 may execute, e.g., on a processor, groupof processors, or other processing circuitry or platform for executingcomputer-executable code. A process 704 may include executable computercode, as well as an allocation of memory, file descriptors or handlesfor data sources and sinks, security attributes such as an owner and anyassociated permissions, and a context including the content of physicalmemory used by the process 704. More generally, a process 704 mayinclude any code executing on an endpoint such as any of the endpointsdescribed herein.

The file system 706 is generally associated with an operating systemthat provides the processing environment 702, and serves as anintermediary between processes 704 executing in the processingenvironment 702 and one or more files 708 stored on the endpoint. Thefile system 706 may provide a directory structure or other construct tofacilitate organization of the files 708, and the file system 706generally supports file functions such as creating, deleting, opening,closing, reading, writing, and so forth.

An extension 710 may be included in the file system 706 by modifying theoperating system kernel. While other programming techniques may beemployed to perform the functions of an extension 710 as contemplatedherein, direct modifications to or additions to the operating systempermit the extension 710 to operate transparently to the processingenvironment 702 and the processes 704 without requiring anymodifications or adaptations. The extension 710 may, for example, beimplemented as a file system filter (in a MICROSOFT WINDOWS environment)or a mount point to a directory (in an APPLE iOS environment). Theextension 710 to the files system as contemplated herein performs twoconcurrent functions. First, the extension 710 communicates with athreat monitor 720 in order to receive updates on the security statusand exposure status of the processes 704 or the endpoint. Second theextension 710 communicates with a key wrapper 730 that provides keymaterial for encrypting and decrypting data in the files 708. Finally,the extension 710 operates to conditionally provide encryption anddecryption of the files 708 for the processes 704 based on a currentsecurity or exposure state, as described in greater detail below.

The threat monitor 720 may include any suitable threat monitoring,malware detection, antivirus program or the like suitable for monitoringand reporting on a security state of an endpoint or individual processes704 executing thereon. This may include local threat monitoring using,e.g., behavioral analysis or static analysis. The threat monitor 720 mayalso or instead use reputation to evaluate the security state ofprocesses 704 based on the processes 704 themselves, source files orexecutable code for the processes 704, or network activity initiated bythe processes 704. For example, if a process 704 requests data from aremote URL that is known to have a bad reputation, this information maybe used to infer a compromised security state of the endpoint. While athreat monitor 720 may operate locally, the threat monitor 720 may alsoor instead use remote resources such as a gateway carrying traffic toand from the endpoint, or a remote threat management facility thatprovides reputation information, malware signatures, policy informationand the like for the endpoint and other devices within an enterprisesuch as the enterprise described above.

In general, the threat monitor 720 provides monitoring of a securitystate and an exposure state of the endpoint. The security state may, forexample, be ‘compromised’, ‘secure’, or some other state or combinationof states. This may be based on detections of known malware, suspiciousactivity, policy violations and so forth. The exposure state may be‘exposed’ or ‘unexposed’, reflecting whether or not a particular process704 or file 708 has been exposed to potentially unsafe content. Thus,exposure may not necessarily represent a specific threat, but thepotential for exposure to unsafe content. This may be tracked in avariety of ways, such as by using the coloring system described abovewith reference to FIG. 5.

The key wrapper 730 may contain a key ring 732 with one or more keys 734for encrypting and decrypting files 708. The key ring 732 may becryptographically protected within the key wrapper 730 in order toprevent malicious access thereto, and the key wrapper 730 maycommunicate with the interface to provide keys 734 for accessing thefiles 708 at appropriate times, depending, for example, on whetherprocesses 704 are secure or exposed. In one aspect, the files 708 arestored in a non-volatile memory such as a disk drive, or in a randomaccess memory that provides a cache for the disk drive, and the keywrapper 730 may be stored in a separate physical memory such as avolatile memory accessible to the operating system and the extension 710but not to processes 704 executing in the user space of the processingenvironment 702.

In one aspect, every document or file on the endpoint may have aseparate key. This may be, for example, a unique, symmetric key that canbe used for encryption and decryption of the corresponding file. The keywrapper 730 may control access to the key material for encrypting anddecrypting individual files, and may be used by the extension 710 tocontrol access by individual processes 704 executing on the endpoint. Asdescribed herein, the extension 710 may generally control access tofiles 708 based on an exposure state, a security state, or other contextsuch as the user of a calling process or the like. In the event of asevere compromise, or a detection of a compromise independent ofparticular processes, a key shredding procedure may be invoked todestroy the entire key wrapper 730 immediately and prevent any furtheraccess to the files 708. In such circumstances, the keys can only berecovered by the endpoint when a remediation is confirmed.Alternatively, the files may be accessed directly and decrypted from asecure, remote resource that can access the keys 734.

FIG. 8 shows a method for proactive network security using a healthheartbeat. In general, a system that provides a heartbeat from endpointscontaining system health information, such as the system described abovewith reference to FIG. 6, may be used to proactively advertisecompromised states within a network and beyond. For example, an endpointmay include health state information indicating a compromised (orpotentially compromised) state, and may communicate this to a gateway,firewall, or other network device, or directly to other endpoints.Similarly, recipients may use indications of compromised states toproactively terminate network communications by compromised endpoints.This technique may advantageously facilitate the proactive isolation ofcompromised network assets. As another advantage, this technique may beimplemented without a centralized switch or firewall, and may permitisolation of network assets even in a shared medium network such as anEthernet or WiFi local area network, as well as within a peer-to-peernetworks or other decentralized networking platforms.

As shown in step 802, the process 800 for operating an endpoint maybegin with locally monitoring a health state of the endpoint. This mayinclude any form of monitoring such as by applying behavioral analysisor static analysis to processes executing on the endpoint, as well asmonitoring using any of the coloring techniques described herein, e.g.,to identify inconsistencies among data and processes, exposure topotentially harmful content, and so forth.

As shown in step 804, the process 800 may include periodically creatinga heartbeat encoding the health state. The heartbeat may, of course,encode other information such as a time, a date, a network address, andthe like useful for logging the heartbeat and, where appropriate, usingthe heartbeat in combination with other heartbeat information from theendpoint or other endpoints. The heartbeat may also or instead encodeinformation about machine status including, without limitation, amachine name or other machine identifier, a user logged into themachine, applications or processes executing on the machine, and soforth. The health state may usefully include any health information. Forexample, this may include a general indicator, e.g., that the endpointis not compromised, is potentially compromised, is compromised, or is inan unknown health state. The health state may more generally be based onany indicia of actual compromise or potential compromise of theendpoint.

In general, the heartbeat may be created on any suitable schedule, whichmay include a fixed schedule, a variable schedule, an event drivenschedule, and so forth, as well as any combination of these. Thus, forexample, a heartbeat may be created on a fixed schedule (e.g., every tenminutes), and also whenever a new application is installed, or wheneverexplicitly requested by the firewall or gateway. In another aspect, arate of heartbeat creation may change over time according to operationof the endpoint, such as by increasing the rate when an increasedpossibility of a compromised state is detected, but a compromised statehas not yet been confirmed. Thus, the term “periodically” as used hereinshould not be understood to imply a particular, fixed schedule, butrather should encompass any type of fixed or varying interval ofheartbeats that might be usefully employed by an endpoint in a networkas contemplated herein.

When the health state is a compromised state, creating the heartbeat mayinclude encoding an instruction in the heartbeat to proactivelyterminate communications by other devices on the network with theendpoint. In a local area network context, the heartbeat may bebroadcast (e.g., in the transmitting step below) through the network,and/or communicated directly to other endpoints within the network forimmediate local action.

As shown in step 806, the process 800 may include cryptographicallysecuring the heartbeat. This may, for example, include digitally signingthe heartbeat, e.g., using a key provided by the certificate authoritydescribed herein, so that the endpoint can be verified as the source ofthe heartbeat. This may also or instead include encrypting some or allof the contents of the heartbeat. For example, a machine identifier oruser credentials might be encrypted to prevent interception and thenplaced in the heartbeat for communication to a gateway or the like.

As shown in step 808, the process 800 may include transmitting theheartbeat to one or more other devices connected in a communicatingrelationship with the endpoint. This may, for example, include devicessuch as a second endpoint connected to the endpoint through a local areanetwork or a peer-to-peer network, either through point-to-pointcommunications, or through a broadcast over the network to any number ofother endpoints. This may also or instead include transmitting theheartbeat to a firewall, a router, a gateway (e.g., for an enterprisenetwork to which the endpoint belongs), a switch or any other networkdevice or the like. The process 800 may also or instead includetransmitting the heartbeat to a threat management facility such as anyof the threat management facilities described herein. In this context,any remedial action may be centrally managed by the threat managementfacility if/when appropriate. After the heartbeat has been transmitted,the process 800 may return to step 802 where health state monitoring maycontinue.

The process for the endpoint described above may be repeatedindefinitely, e.g., so long as the endpoint is powered on and coupled tothe network, and may recur as frequently as necessary or appropriate forthe schedule of the heartbeat. In one aspect, there is disclosed hereinan endpoint that generates periodic heartbeats as described herein. Theendpoint may include a network interface configured to couple in acommunicating relationship with one or more devices through a network, amemory, and a processor. The processor may be configured by computerexecutable code stored in the memory to perform the steps of monitoringa health state of the endpoint, periodically creating a heartbeatencoding the health state, when the health state is a compromised state,encoding an instruction in the heartbeat to proactively terminatecommunications by other devices on the network with the endpoint, andtransmitting the heartbeat to one or more other devices connected in acommunicating relationship with the endpoint through a network.

Having described an example of operation of an endpoint thatperiodically creates a heartbeat encoding health state information, thedescription now turns to a recipient of that heartbeat. This may be afirewall (as shown in FIG. 8), or any other network element, or one ormore other endpoints within a network.

As shown in step 810, the process 800 for receiving the heartbeat maybegin with receiving a heartbeat at a network device from a firstendpoint coupled to a network. The network device may include any devicethat might be coupled to the network and usefully configured to receivethe heartbeat, such as a second endpoint coupled to the network, afirewall, a router, a gateway, a switch, or the like. In another aspect,the method may be performed by a local firewall for the endpoint. Thus,receiving the heartbeat may also or instead include receiving theheartbeat at a firewall of the endpoint that created the heartbeat. Asnoted above, the heartbeat may include a cryptographically securedheartbeat containing signed information about the health state of thefirst endpoint.

The network may be an enterprise network as described herein, or anyother network such as, for example, a local area network such as a WiFior Ethernet local area network using a shared physical medium, or apeer-to-peer network, a virtual private network, and so forth. For alocal area network, the heartbeat may be broadcast directly from thesource endpoint to other endpoints connected to the local network. Itwill be appreciated that, while a heartbeat from a single endpoint isillustrated, any number of endpoints or other devices may concurrentlyor sequentially provide heartbeats to the firewall or otherrecipient(s).

As shown in step 812, the process 800 may include determining a healthstate of the endpoint based on the heartbeat. This may, for example,include decrypting the contents of the heartbeat, verifying a signatureof the heartbeat, or any other suitable steps. In an aspect, the healthstate may be explicitly encoded into the heartbeat. In another aspect,indicia of health may be included in the heartbeat, and the recipientmay independently assess whether to treat the endpoint as compromised.In an aspect, the health state may be based on an indicia of potentialcompromised contained in the heartbeat, that is, an elevated likelihoodof compromise without a final conclusion concerning the health state.

However encoded, determining the health state may generally includeextracting the health state information from the heartbeat, and/orinferring the health state information based on a characteristic of theheartbeat. A variety of characteristics may indicate or suggestconditions permitting an accurate inference of a compromised healthstate. For example, the characteristic may include an omission of asubsequent heartbeat from the endpoint concurrent with other networktraffic from the endpoint. The characteristic may also or insteadinclude a replay of a prior heartbeat, a signature defect in theheartbeat, or any other characteristic or combination of characteristicsindicative of a compromised endpoint.

As shown in step 814, if the health state is not compromised, theprocess 800 may return to step 810 where a next heartbeat may bereceived. If the health state is compromised, the process 800 mayproceed to step 816 where additional action may be taken.

As shown in step 816, the process 800 may include verifying a healthstate of the endpoint. For example, if the endpoint reports acompromised state in the heartbeat, the recipient may take an additionalstep of querying the endpoint directly to verify the health state, orreviewing previous heartbeats from the endpoint for related contextualinformation.

As shown in step 818, the process 800 may include transmitting anotification to one or more other devices on the network. This may, forexample, include an explicit instruction to terminate communicationswith the endpoint, or this may include a statement of the health statethat permits autonomous response by any and all recipients, or somecombination of these. In general, steps 810-818 may be performed by anysuitable network device, and as such, transmitting the notification mayinclude transmitting the notification from at least one of a remotenetwork service, the endpoint (e.g., from an internal firewall for theendpoint), a router, a firewall, a gateway, a switch, or the like.Transmitting the notification may include transmitting the notificationto one or more other endpoints coupled to the network, or to any othersuitable recipient such as a threat management facility or the like. Forcommunication to other endpoints within a network, transmitting thenotification may include broadcasting the notification. Transmitting thenotification may also or instead include transmitting the notificationof the compromised state to a threat management facility for thenetwork, or transmitting an instruction to a gateway for the network toblock traffic to and from the first endpoint through the gateway.

After transmitting any suitable notifications or instructions, theprocess 800 for the recipient may return to step 810 where a nextheartbeat may be received.

Thus, there is disclosed herein a network device that may receive aheartbeat and process the heartbeat, e.g., as described above. In oneaspect, a network device disclosed herein includes a first interfaceconfigured to couple in a communicating relationship with a firstendpoint through a network, a second interface configured to couple in acommunication relationship with one or more other devices through thenetwork, a memory, and a processor. The processor may be configured bycomputer executable code stored in the memory to identify compromisedassets in the network by performing the steps of receiving a heartbeatfrom the first endpoint, determining a health state of the firstendpoint based on the heartbeat, and if the health state is acompromised state, transmitting a notification to the one or more otherdevices to terminate communications with the first endpoint. The networkdevice may, for example, be a gateway for the network (e.g., to anothernetwork), a router for a local area network coupling the first endpointto the one or more other devices, a firewall for the network, or anyother suitable network device or combination of the foregoing.

In another aspect, a network device contemplated herein includes a firstinterface configured to couple in a communicating relationship with afirst endpoint through a network, a second interface configured tocouple in a communication relationship with one or more other devicesthrough the network, a memory, and a processor. The processor may beconfigured by computer executable code stored in the memory to identifycompromised assets in the network by performing the steps of receiving aheartbeat from the first endpoint, determining a health state of thefirst endpoint based on the heartbeat, and if the health state is acompromised state, preventing further communications on the network bythe first endpoint through the network device.

FIG. 9 shows a process for detecting malicious lateral movement in anetwork. In general, a human or automated attacker may establish abeachhead within a network, e.g., at a relatively easy point of entry,and then attempt to laterally move within the network to more secureareas and/or sources of more valuable, confidential, or otherwisesensitive information. One form of lateral movement involves logging into one endpoint on the network from another endpoint on the network. Bymonitoring patterns of login attempts (typically failed login attempts),malicious lateral movement attempts can be detected before lateralmovement is achieved. In general, this technique may be used alone, orin combination with other malware detection techniques described herein.

As shown in step 902, the process 900 may include collectingnotifications from each of a plurality of endpoints relating to activitywith other ones of the plurality of endpoints in a network. Thenotifications may, for example, include notifications of failed loginattempts, which may be reported from an endpoint that failed in anattempt to login at a remote machine, the remote machine (e.g., a secondendpoint) at which the login attempt failed, or some combination ofthese. Notifications may, for example, be collected at a firewall, agateway, or another network device, or at a cloud resource such as acloud-based threat management facility, e.g., configured to identifypatterns of malicious login behavior. The notifications may be based onauthentication logs stored in memory on each of the plurality ofendpoints, and may be communicated in real time (e.g., as each loginattempt occurs) or in batches, which may be triggered by a schedule orsome local event such as multiple, temporally adjacent login attemptsfrom a single endpoint. In one aspect, the notification may be triggeredby a network protocol used for an authentication attempt, where eachauthentication attempt presented using a particular network protocolcauses a notification to be communicated. In another aspect, aparticular failure pattern for a number of different attempts causes thenotification to be triggered. Thus, for example, an unusually largenumber of consecutive login attempts in a short amount of time, or arotation through a suspicious collection of different credentials orpasswords, may serve as the basis for a notification.

As shown in step 904, the process 900 may include analyzing thenotifications in any suitable manner. A number of patterns may commonlyrecur when a malicious actor (human or automated) attempts to movelaterally within a network. For example, one pattern of attack involvesa high frequency of failed logins at a particular location using asequence of different credentials. Another pattern attempts to obfuscatethis activity by rotating logins sequentially around a number ofdifferent network locations while using common passwords, or a singlepassword that might have been improperly obtained. Thus, in one aspect,analyzing the notifications may include analyzing the notifications toidentify a malicious lateral movement, or a malicious attempt at lateralmovement, from a compromised endpoint of the plurality of endpoints. Theidentification may be based on a pattern in the notifications such asany of the patterns described herein. Other patterns, such as a speed ofdata entry or login attempts exceeding ordinary manual activity, mayalso or instead be employed. More generally, a malicious attempt atlateral movement may be associated with malware executing on thecompromised endpoint, a compromised application on the compromisedendpoint, or a malicious use of a user identity on the compromisedendpoint, and the notifications may be analyzed for patterns indicatingany or all of these types of lateral movement attempts.

The techniques described herein may advantageously permit theidentification of malicious activity before improper access is gainedand a security compromise such as malware installation or dataexfiltration occurs. Further advantages may accrue by monitoringactivity across a number of endpoints, which can improve sensitivity toattacks that rotate access attempts across a number of different networkassets.

As shown in step 906, a determination may be made whether the patternidentified in step 904 indicates a presence of an attack including amalicious attempt at lateral movement from a compromised endpoint. Whenthe pattern does not suggest any attempts at malicious lateral movement,the process 900 may return to step 902 where additional notificationsmay be received.

As shown in step 908, when the pattern of notifications indicates apresence of a malicious attempt at lateral movement, the process 900 mayinclude any suitable remediation. For example, remediation may includeisolating the compromised endpoint from other ones of the plurality ofendpoints in the network to prevent lateral movement from the endpoint.Remediation may also or instead include the creation of a falsified,attractive asset to draw the malicious activity toward a resource wherethe malicious activity can be tracked more closely, or from wherecountermeasures can be deployed. In another aspect, remediation mayinclude remediating the compromised endpoint by removing a malwarecomponent associated with the attack. This may also or instead includekilling a process associated with the attack, killing an applicationassociated with the attack, initiating a root cause analysis for theattack, or notifying a security resource such as a threat managementfacility of the attack. Similarly, steps may be taken to address a user,such as by terminating a user session associated with the attack,revoking user credentials for a current user of the endpoint, orrequiring a step-up authentication for the endpoint (e.g., by requiringmanual re-entry of credentials, by presenting a security question, orsome other user verification procedure).

According to the foregoing, there is disclosed herein a system fordetecting malicious lateral movement attempts. The system may include anumber of endpoints, each instrumented to transmit notifications offailed login attempts as generally described herein. The system may alsoinclude a device coupled to the endpoints through a network andconfigured (e.g., with computer executable code stored in a memory ofthe device and executable on a processor of the device) to receive thenotifications from each of the plurality of endpoints over the network,and to identify a malicious lateral movement attempt from a compromisedendpoint of the plurality of endpoints to another one of the pluralityof endpoints based on a pattern in the notifications. The device mayinclude a firewall, a gateway, or any other network device.

As described above, the notifications may generally be transmitted fromoriginators of the failed login attempts (e.g., an endpoint thatattempts to login to another endpoint) or the recipient of the failedlogin attempts. The pattern of interest may be based on a pattern oflogin attempts received at a particular machine, such as a patternindicating a machine-initiated sequence of login attempts. In anotheraspect, the pattern may be a pattern suggesting a spray attack in whicha compromised endpoint attempts a small number of logins consecutivelyat a number of different ones of the plurality of endpoints. The smallnumber of logins may, for example, use a weak password such as acommonly used password with a higher than normal probability of success,where the compromised endpoint rotates through a number of availableendpoints on the network with high-probability credentials.

FIG. 10 shows a system 1000 for baiting endpoints to improve detectionof authentication attacks. In one form of an authentication attack, anattacker gains access to a machine, and then uses seemingly legitimateaccess to a credential store on that machine to access other resourcesidentified in the credential store. Thus, for example, a compromisedmachine may be used to access web sites, web services, data stores, andso forth where the corresponding credentials have been stored in acredential store for automated use on a machine.

In order to address this attack, credentials 1001 for accessing a remoteservice may be created and stored in the credential store of an endpoint1004 for use by an application 1006 on the endpoint 1004 to access theremote service. This may, for example, include a web service 1010accessible through a network 1012 such as the Internet, or this mayinclude a dedicated trapping service 1014 executing on a firewall 1016or some other similar device such as a gateway, a router, a switch, orthe like interposed (logically or physically) between the endpoint 1004and the network 1012. In general, the credentials 1001 will have nolegitimate use, and only serve to advertise unauthorized access to thecredential store 1002. In the event that the endpoint 1004 becomescompromised and a login attempt is made to the trapping service 1014 orthe remote web service 1010, use of the credentials 1001 will provide anindication of compromise to the endpoint 1004 and any suitableremediation may be taken. An example of a method for baiting endpointsin this manner is now described in greater detail.

FIG. 11 shows a method for baiting endpoints to improve detection ofauthentication attacks.

As shown in step 1102, the method 1100 may begin with providingcredentials to the endpoint. This may, for example, include creating newcredentials for the endpoint, and communicating the credentials to theendpoint over a network. The credentials may advantageously be selectedto be attractive to malware, e.g., by including an account name (e.g.,super_user or admin), a set of privileges (e.g., any elevated orcomplete file access and execution privileges), or a domain (e.g.,accounting, legal, confidential, and the like) that might drawheightened interest to a malicious actor, whether automated or human.More generally, these elements of the credential set may be selected toinclude any characteristics that provide an appearance of access tovaluable information.

This may be initiated from a service that is responsive to registrationand/or login requests through the network. For example, the service maybe a dedicated malware trapping service. This may also or insteadinclude a remote service accessible with a browser executing on theendpoint, or any other third party service outside an enterprise networkfor the endpoint that is configured to identify authentication attacksby trapping malware that presents predetermined credentials improperlyobtained from a credential store. In one aspect, the service may executeon a firewall for an enterprise network for the endpoint. In anotheraspect, the service may execute on a router, gateway, or other networkdevice for the enterprise network.

In one aspect, the service may be a web service located at a remotenetwork location from the endpoint and/or an enterprise network of theendpoint, e.g., at a location across an enterprise firewall. The webservice may be created and hosted by the enterprise as a dedicatedservice for baiting endpoints as contemplated herein. In another aspect,the web service may be a commercial web service of a third party that,by agreement with the enterprise, provides a collection of credentialsexpressly for detecting compromised endpoints in the enterprise network.In this latter aspect, the third party may provide correspondingcredential sets as requested by the enterprise, and the third party mayoptionally charge the enterprise for the credentials used to providethis improved security feature, as well as for the downstream monitoringof credential usage.

In another aspect as noted above, the firewall may host a dedicatedtrapping service at a network address within the enterprise network (ormore specifically, hosted at the firewall) with a sole purpose oftrapping usage of the faked credentials. Thus, in one aspect, providingthe credentials may include providing credentials to an endpoint forlogging in to a dedicated malware trapping service accessible by theendpoint through a network, such as a dedicated malware trapping serviceon the firewall or at a remote network location.

As shown in step 1104, the method 1100 may include storing thecredentials in a memory for use by an endpoint to log in to a serviceavailable to the endpoint on a network. This may, for example, includestoring the credentials in a credential store or other secure credentialstorage facility for the endpoint. Where the credential store isdirectly accessible by a process on the endpoint, the credentials maysimply be placed in the credential store, along with the network addressof the corresponding service, e.g., in any format and with any encodingappropriate for the credential store. However, credential stores areoften proprietary and/or heavily encrypted to protect sensitive logininformation available therein, and may rely on third party services,security tokens, encryption keys, and other information or resources toobtain and present login credentials to a remote service. Thus, evenwhere an operating system or a local application such as a web browsermaintains a credential store locally on the endpoint, it may not bepossible to directly read from and write to this credential store. Inorder to place faked credentials into such a data store, a process onthe endpoint (or a remote process) may cause the endpoint to log in toor register at the corresponding service so that the correspondingcredential data can be natively added to the credential store. Thus, inone aspect, storing the credential on the endpoint includes causing theendpoint to add the credentials to a credential store for the endpointby logging in to the service using the credentials.

It should also be understood that, while the credential store may be alocal credential store residing in a memory on the endpoint, thecredential store may also or instead include a remote credential storeresiding in a memory remote from the endpoint and accessible by theendpoint through the network. This latter implementation may, forexample, include various cloud-based services, identity managementservices, and the like that remotely store credentials and identityinformation for use by the endpoint in network environments. In anotheraspect, the credential store may include browser cookies or otherbrowser information stored on the endpoint that is specific toparticular websites.

As shown in step 1106, the method 1100 may include monitoring networkactivity by the endpoint to detect use of the credentials. This may forexample, include monitoring login attempts at a dedicated malwaretrapping service as described herein, or monitoring login attempts aremote web service or the like. This may also or instead includemonitoring access to the service to detect presentation of thecredentials to the service by a device other than the endpoint, andidentifying the device as a compromised device. Thus, for example, wherethe credential store itself is exported or otherwise made accessible toa second device, this information may be used to detect the source ofthe credentials request as also compromised. In one aspect, all devicesmay be seeded with the same credentials in order to simplify detectionrules. In another aspect, the devices may each be seeded with differentcredentials in order to provide more granular detection of the locationof a compromise.

As shown in step 1108, the method 1100 may include identifying acompromised state of the endpoint based on credential usage. Forexample, the method 1100 may include identifying a compromised state ofthe endpoint when a use of the credentials is detected at a dedicatedmalware trapping service, or more generally, when a use of thecredentials is detected anywhere, e.g., when the credentials arepresented to a remote service, or when the credentials are communicatedthrough a firewall filter or the like that is instrumented to detect thecredentials.

As shown in step 1110, the method 1100 may include responding to thecompromised state. This step 1110 contemplates any of a wide range ofpossible response and combinations of responses generally encompassingremediation of the endpoint and downstream tracking of the maliciousbehavior. For example, this may include responding to the compromisedstate by terminating network access by the endpoint. In another aspect,this may include responding to the compromised state by initiatingremediation of the endpoint, for example using any of the remediationtechniques described herein such as malware removal, withholdingdecryption keys for data on the endpoint, ending a user session,requiring re-verification of user credentials or other stepped-upverification procedures, and so forth. In an aspect, remediation mayalso or instead include one or more of revoking other credentialscontained in the credential store, or notifying relevant credentialingauthorities of the compromise. Responding may also or instead includefurther baiting of the endpoint, e.g., by creating attractive butfalsified information on the endpoint (e.g., financial information,personal information, bank account information, and the like) to retaininterest in the endpoint so that further monitoring and analysis can beperformed, or by deploying tracking software or planting an exploit orother countermeasure in data that is provided by the service in responseto access using the credentials. In another aspect, the response mayinclude identifying a process on the endpoint that used the credentials,and tracking activity of the process to identify further malwareactivity by the process. After the compromised state has been resolved,the process may optionally return to step 1102 where new credentials canbe provided to the endpoint for placement in the endpoint credentialstore.

In one aspect, there is disclosed herein a device for baiting endpointsfor improved detection of authentication attacks. The device may includea network interface configured to couple in a communicating relationshipwith a network including an endpoint, along with a memory and aprocessor. The processor may be configured by computer executable codestored in the memory to perform the steps of storing credentials in amemory for use by the endpoint to log in to a service available to theendpoint on the network, monitoring activity of at least one of theendpoint and the service to detect use of the credentials, and when ause of the credentials at the service is detected, identifying acompromised state of the endpoint.

FIG. 12 shows a multi-modal monitoring system 1200 for improveddetection of phishing attacks. In general, an endpoint 1204 may executea browser 1206 for web navigation, and a mail client 1208 for sendingand receiving electronic mail (typically in cooperation with a remotemail server or the like). Both of these local applications maycommunicate through a firewall 1210 or similar gateway for an enterprisenetwork to which the endpoint 1204 belongs, and the endpoint 1204 maycommunicate through the firewall 1210 with a network 1212 that connectsthe endpoint 1204 with, e.g., the electronic mail server used by themail client 1208 and web content used by the browser 1206. These twocommunication channels may use different network protocols, dataformats, and the like, and are typically not concurrently monitored forinter-related communications. Even where an electronic mail is viewedthrough a web mail client within the browser 1206, the content of theelectronic mail viewed therein may be treated separately from theunderlying web traffic for the browser.

By using multi-model monitoring, a firewall 1210 or other networkresource may identify relationships between web traffic and electronicmail traffic, or more specifically in the case of a phishing attack, theabsence of a relationship between an electronic mail communicationrequesting sensitive information and any preceding web interactions thatmight have elicited such an electronic mail inquiry. An example of amethod for exploiting this multi-modal monitoring is discussed ingreater detail below. While a firewall 1210 is illustrated for thispurpose, it will be appreciated that monitoring and other processes maybe performed at the endpoint 1204, or at any other suitable location orcombination of locations.

FIG. 13 shows a method for improved detection and prevention of phishingattacks.

As shown in step 1302, the method 1300 may begin with monitoringoutbound web traffic from an endpoint, such as by monitoring activity bya web browser executing on the endpoint. The endpoint may be associatedwith an enterprise or network that provides corporate credentials forcorporate users, and the monitoring may include monitoring of the use ofcredentials at remote websites. Monitoring outbound web traffic mayinclude locally monitoring network communications at the endpoint orremotely monitoring network communications at a firewall coupled betweenthe endpoint and a network. A security policy for the enterprise mayprovide additional restrictions on web traffic during monitoring, eitherindependently from and/or in addition to monitoring for use ofcredentials. For example, monitoring outbound web traffic may includerestricting outbound web traffic according to the security policy, suchas by prohibiting web access to certain domains or websites.

As shown in step 1304, the method 1300 may include monitoring theinbound electronic mail traffic to the endpoint. Monitoring the inboundelectronic mail traffic may include locally monitoring networkcommunications at the endpoint or remotely monitoring networkcommunications at a firewall coupled between the endpoint and a network.Similarly, monitoring inbound electronic mail traffic may includemonitoring activity by a local electronic mail client executing on theendpoint, or monitoring inbound electronic mail traffic may includemonitoring activity within a web mail client displayed within a webbrowser executing on the endpoint, or some combination of these.

A variety of techniques may be usefully deployed to detect relevantelectronic mail communications. In one aspect, monitoring inboundelectronic mail traffic includes analyzing a displayed message withinthe electronic mail traffic for text indicating that the electronic mailis responsive to a user registration process. In another aspect,monitoring the inbound electronic mail traffic includes restricting theinbound electronic mail traffic according to a security policy for theenterprise or network.

It will be understood that while outbound and inbound monitoring areillustrated as discrete steps, these may be repeated with any frequencyand in any order appropriate to a desired level of monitoring for andendpoint. For example, where real time monitoring is desired, bothmonitoring steps may be performed continuously and concurrently. Wherebatch monitoring is desired, e.g., where the method 1300 is onlydeployed when a link in an electronic mail is selected in a userinterface, then logging may be continuous, but analysis may be deferreduntil a link selection is detected. More generally, any frequency andorder of monitoring steps may be used provided that a desiredsensitivity to current computer activity is achieved.

As shown in step 1306, if no hyperlink is located in a particular itemof electronic mail, then the process 1300 may return to step 1302 whereadditional monitoring of web traffic and electronic mail traffic may beperformed. When an electronic mail in the inbound electronic mailtraffic includes a hyperlink to an external resource, the method 1300may proceed to step 1308.

As shown in step 1308, when an electronic mail in the inbound electronicmail traffic includes a hyperlink to an external resource, the method1300 may include searching the outbound web traffic from a user of theendpoint for one or more possible sources of a request for theelectronic mail by the user. Searching the outbound web traffic may, forexample, include searching for a correspondence between a URL of thehyperlink and a second URL of one of the remote web sites in theoutbound web traffic. Where a correspondence is identified, an inferencemay be made that the user initiated the request for the electronic mail,and the mail may be further processed as discussed below. Similarly,where an inbound electronic mail appears related to a legitimatepassword reset, registration process, business communication, or thelike, that can be associated with outbound web traffic, the electronicmail may be identified as a user initiated request.

As shown in step 1310, if the user initiated the request for theelectronic mail containing the hyperlink, then no remediation or otheraction may be required, and the method 1300 may return to step 1302where additional web traffic and mail traffic monitoring may beperformed. This may include allowing access to the external resourcewith the hyperlink in an ordinary, uninterrupted fashion. Where there isa security policy controlling use of corporate credentials outside theenterprise, other tests may be performed at this step. Thus, forexample, the method 1300 may include locally preventing submission ofone of the corporate credentials for the user to one of the remote websites when one of the remote web sites has a low reputation. In oneaspect, this latter rule may be enforced continuously and independentlyof electronic mail communications.

If the user did not initiate the request, e.g., where no link tocorresponding web activity can be identified in historical logs, thenthe method 1300 may include preventing access to the external resource,e.g., subject to a security policy of the enterprise or network, asshown in step 1312. The security policy, may for example, permit use ofthe external resource when the external resource has a good reputation(e.g., a known software updater), and permit use of hyperlink to thatresource even if there is no indication that the electronic mail wassolicited by the user. In one aspect, preventing access may includenotifying the user of an unsolicited electronic mail and requesting anexplicit authorization from the user before permitting use of thehyperlink to access the external resource. However resolved, the method1300 may, after completion, return to step 1302 where additionalmonitoring may be performed.

According to an implementation as per the foregoing, there is describedherein a device for detecting and preventing phishing attacks. Thedevice, which may be any of the endpoints, firewalls, or other computingdevices described herein, may include a network interface configured tocouple in a communicating relationship with a network, a memory, and aprocessor. The processor may be configured by computer executable codestored in the memory to perform the steps of monitoring outbound webtraffic from an endpoint including use of credentials at remote websites, where the endpoint is associated with an enterprise that providescorporate credentials for corporate users, monitoring inbound electronicmail traffic to the endpoint, when an electronic mail in the inboundelectronic mail traffic includes a hyperlink to an external resource,determining whether a user of the endpoint initiated a request for theelectronic mail by searching the outbound web traffic from the user ofthe endpoint for one or more possible sources of the request, andconditionally allowing access to the external resource with thehyperlink based on whether the user initiated the request.

In one aspect, the processor may be further configured to conditionallyallow access to the external resource based on a security policy of theenterprise or network for accessing external resources. The device mayinclude the endpoint (e.g., where local monitoring is performed), or thedevice may include a firewall, gateway, or similar network devicebetween the endpoint and the network.

FIG. 14 shows a method for handling network traffic based on theidentity of a source application for the traffic. More specifically, theflow chart of FIG. 14 illustrates a method for operating a firewall orsimilar network device to selectively forward network communicationsbetween a first network interface and a second network interface (whichmay be the same interface or different interfaces). In general, thefirst interface may be operable to couple to an endpoint that isexecuting an application, and the second interface may be operable tocouple to a remote resource hosted on a server or the like. Thetechniques disclosed herein for coloring network flows may be used tosignal, either within packets of network data or in a separate controlchannel, the identity of an application on an endpoint that isoriginating network traffic, or engaged in network communications with aremote resource or the like. This information may be used to makeimproved decisions about whether and how to route traffic to and fromthe identified application. By using this information as describedbelow, network traffic may be conditionally forward only when certainsecurity conditions are met.

As shown in step 1402, the method 1400 may include receiving a requestfrom an application executing on an endpoint. This may be anyapplication sourcing network traffic such as a web browser, a messagingclient, or some other application. It will be understood that therequest may contain information that, at least initially, can provide anindicia of non-malicious network activity. For example, the request mayinclude credentials for authenticating an application to the serverhosting a remote resource, or the request may include an encryptedheartbeat containing (verifiable) information about a state of theendpoint.

As shown in step 1404, the method 1400 may include determining anidentity of an application that originated a request on an endpoint, forexample based on an application identity contained in a packet carryingthe request. Thus for example the identity of the application may beextracted from the request and, where suitable digital signatures areincluded, verified or otherwise tested for authenticity as desired. Inanother aspect, determining the identity of the application may includequerying the endpoint from a firewall or the like for the identity(assuming the corresponding capabilities are available on the endpointto respond to such a query).

As shown in step 1406, the method 1400 may include determining asecurity state of the application. This may be performed using any ofthe malware detection techniques contemplated herein. In one aspect,determining the security state of the application may includedetermining the security state based on a secure heartbeat included inthe packet. For example, the secure heartbeat may directly encodesecurity (or compromise) information that can be used to assess thesecurity of the application, and the security state of the applicationmay be extracted from the request. In another aspect, a presence orabsence of the secure heartbeat may be used to infer a health state ofthe application based on a more general health state of the endpoint.

In another aspect, where the endpoint is instrumented (e.g., with asecurity data recorder or other similarly-capable logging facility) todetect causal chains of events on the endpoint, this information may beusefully employed to traverse a causal chain of events on the endpointto identify a root cause of the request, which may also or instead beevaluated for possible compromise. Thus for example, where a generic andotherwise healthy application initiates a suspicious request, this maybe reflected in a causal chain that suggests that the application hasbeen compromised in some manner. This may also or instead include moregenerally querying the endpoint from a firewall or other networkappliance for indicia of compromise, e.g., by requesting a secureheartbeat, requesting authentication data, requesting credentials, orany other technique for manual or automated verification of endpointhealth.

Other techniques may also or instead be used such as credential-basedauthentication techniques or the like. For example, determining thesecurity state of the application may include querying the endpoint forat least one of credentials authenticating the application to theserver, credentials authenticating a user of the endpoint to the server,or an encrypted heartbeat containing information about a state of theendpoint.

As shown in step 1408, the method 1400 may include conditionallyforwarding the request to the server as requested only when certainsecurity conditions are satisfied. By way of non-limiting example, thismay include conditionally forwarding the request when the identity ofthe application is recognized and the security state of the applicationis uncompromised. This may also or instead include conditionallyforwarding the request only when the security state of the endpoint isuncompromised. It will be understood that, while forwarding criteria maybe manually provided, rules for forwarding may also or instead beautomatically generated based on crowd-sourced behavior, patterndetection, and so forth. Thus for example a rule may be created bymonitoring a pattern of traffic to the remote resource from a pluralityof endpoints and automatically developing a rule for acceptableconnections to the server based on the pattern of traffic.

In general, if the forwarding conditions are satisfied, the method 1400may proceed to forward the request to the intended recipient (theserver) as requested (step 1410) and the method 1400 may return to step1402 where a next request may be received from the endpoint.

As shown in step 1412, if the forwarding conditions are not satisfied,then additional remediation may be performed. For example, the method1400 may include transmitting a notification to the endpoint, or to athreat management facility or other network security resource, when anindication of compromise is detected for the application.

Following a satisfactory remediation, the method 1400 may return to step1402 where a next request may be received from the endpoint.

According to the foregoing, in one aspect there is disclosed herein afirewall configured to selectively forward network communications. Thefirewall may include a first network interface operable to couple to anendpoint and a second network interface operable to couple to a remoteresource hosted at a server. The firewall may include a processorconfigured to respond to a request from the endpoint to the remoteresource for a service by performing the steps of: determining anidentity of an application that originated the request on the endpoint,determining a security a security state of the application, andconditionally forwarding the request to the server only when theidentity of the application is recognized and the security state of theapplication is uncompromised, all as generally described above.

In one aspect, the firewall may be locally coupled to the remoteresource, e.g., so that the resource can monitor for requests fromcompromised endpoints, or the firewall may be locally coupled to theendpoint, e.g. resident on the endpoint. The firewall may also orinstead be a firewall of an enterprise gateway or the like that monitorstraffic between an enterprise network and a public network, or any othergateway or the like between different networks. In another aspect, theendpoint and the remote resource may be coupled together through apeer-to-peer network or other network infrastructure.

In another aspect, there is disclosed herein a computer program productfor operating a firewall to selectively forward network communicationsbetween a first network interface of the firewall operable to couple toan endpoint and a second network interface of the firewall operable tocouple to a remote resource hosted at a server. The computer programproduct may include computer executable code embodied in anon-transitory memory of a firewall or the like that, when executing onthe firewall, responds to a request from the endpoint to the remoteresource by performing any of the steps described above.

FIG. 15 shows a system for multi-factor authentication using an endpointheartbeat. In general, multi-factor authentication contemplatesverification of the identity of a user based on various authenticationfactors such as something the user knows (e.g., a password), somethingthe user has (e.g., a hardware token or smart phone), or something theuser is (e.g., a biometric characteristic such as a fingerprint, voiceprint, typing speed or pattern, etc.). A secure heartbeat from anendpoint may be used instead of or in addition to any one of theseauthentication factors to enable multi-factor authentication based on ahealth state of the endpoint. In general, the system 1500 may include anetwork 1502 such as any of the networks described herein, along with anauthentication requester 1504, an endpoint 1506, an authenticationservice 1512 and a user device 1514. An application 1508 may beexecuting on the endpoint 1506, as well as a heartbeat source 1510 thatprovides heartbeat indicating the health status of the endpoint 1506. Ina conventional model, the endpoint 1506 may provide user credentials andreceive a token or other authentication data or the like from an activedirectory federation service or similar platform for an enterprise, andprovide this token to a cloud-based access control service. The accesscontrol service may, in turn verify the token with the provider andissue a second token that the endpoint 1506 can use to access secureservices protected by the access control service. These techniques maybe adapted for use with heartbeat-based authentication in a variety ofways.

The authentication requester 1504 may be any network entity, program orthe like that might seek to verify the identity of the endpoint 1506, ora user of the endpoint 1506. This may, for example, include anycloud-based service, secure server, or other platform that providesresources, e.g., through the network 1502, to properly authenticatedusers. When an endpoint 1506 initiates a request for access to suchresources, the authentication requester 1504 may require authenticationdata from the endpoint 1506.

In another aspect, the authentication requester 1504 may be the endpoint1506. That is, the endpoint 1506 may provide a heartbeat to theauthentication service 1512 and receive authentication data such as atoken, one-time code, or the like in response. The endpoint 1506 maythen present this authentication data to other resources as needed. Forexample, the endpoint 1506 may provide a heartbeat to a local or remoteidentity management system in order to receive authentication dataincluding an identity-based token. In another aspect, the endpoint 1506may provide a heartbeat to an access control service in addition to orinstead of an identity-based token, and receive authentication dataenabling the endpoint 1506 to access remote services.

In another aspect, the authentication requester 1504 may be a gateway,access control service, or other connector to secure services. This may,for example, included a local authentication system such as an activedirectory service, or an enterprise access control platform or identitymanagement system. This may also or instead include any cloud-basedresource such as a cloud-based computing platform, social networkingplatform, or the like. In such embodiments, the request forauthentication data from the authentication requester 1504 may be anexplicit request presented to the endpoint 1506 or the authenticationservice 1512, or the request may be an implicit request. In an implicitrequest, the endpoint 1506 may be required to present authenticationdata through an application programming interface or the like as a partof an authentication process. That is, a request is not explicitlypresented to the endpoint 1506, but the authentication data mustnonetheless be presented (optionally along with other information) inorder to proceed, and is thus requested in the sense that it isaffirmatively required in order to proceed with an authenticationprocess. Thus in one aspect, requesting authentication data ascontemplated herein includes presenting a programming interface or thelike that conditions access or use on the receipt of properauthentication data. In complementary fashion, receiving anauthentication request may include accessing the application programminginterface and providing authentication data through the programminginterface. For example, the authentication requester 1504 may include acloud-based or enterprise identity management service that requirescredentials or the like as a condition for issuing a token associatedwith an identity of the credential provider. In such systems, theheartbeat may be used in addition to or instead of user credentials.

In another aspect, the authentication requester 1504 may be a webservice or the like that is directly accessed by the endpoint 1506. Thismay, for example, include a website, server, or other resource orservice that a user of the endpoint 1506 might log into or otherwiseaccess or use. In this context, an authentication request may beassociated with a login page or the like, or the authentication requestmay be associated with a particular transaction such as a fundstransfer, file download, or the like.

In general, the application 1508 may be any program or service executingon the endpoint 1506 that might attempt to demonstrate an identity ofthe endpoint 1506 or a user of the endpoint, e.g., in order to accesssecure services or otherwise interact with an identity management layerof a local, enterprise, and/or cloud-based infrastructure. For example,the application 1508 may include a browser attempting to establish atrust relationship for use of a secure web service. The heartbeat source1510 may include any of the sources of a heartbeat described herein. Inone aspect, the content of the heartbeat may vary according to a stateof health or compromise for the endpoint 1506, so that theauthentication service 1512 can make decisions or perform authenticationfunctions conditionally according to the health state of the endpoint1506.

The authentication service 1512 may in general be any service accessibleby the endpoint 1506 and configured to provide authentication dataconditioned upon receipt of a heartbeat from the endpoint 1506. Theauthentication service 1512 may, for example, execute within a gateway,firewall, threat management facility or other facility within anenterprise for the endpoint 1506, or at any other suitable logical orphysical location within the identity management fabric of theenterprise. The authentication service 1512 may also or instead be athird-party service accessible through the network 1502. In one aspect,the authentication service 1512 may maintain a trust relationship with apotential authentication requester 1504 so that the authenticationrequester 1504 can either receive authentication data from theauthentication server 1512 (for comparison to authentication datareceived through another channel), or cryptographically verifyauthentication data with reference to a trusted third party.

In general, the authentication service 1512 may rely on a heartbeat fromthe endpoint 1506 as a condition for release of authentication data. Inone aspect, the authentication service 1512 may receive the heartbeatdirectly, e.g., within a communication from the endpoint 1506 to anapplication programming interface for the authentication service 1512,or in some other manner. For example, the heartbeat source 1510 maycontinuously provide a heartbeat to the authentication service 1512, andthe authentication service 1512 may respond to authentication requestsdirectly from another authentication requester 1504 based on thepresence and content of the heartbeat. In another aspect, theauthentication service 1512 may receive the heartbeat indirectly. Forexample, the heartbeat may be received by a threat management facility,gateway or other resource within an enterprise network, which may inturn make the heartbeat available to the authentication service 1512. Inanother aspect, this intermediate resource may provide information aboutthe status of the endpoint 1506 based on the heartbeat, thus providingan indirect confirmation of the health status without requiringcommunication of the heartbeat itself. Thus for example a threatmanagement facility may receive a heartbeat, verify a satisfactoryhealth status of the endpoint, and then provide a correspondingindication of the health status in any suitable form and through anysuitable communication channel to the authentication service 1512.

The authentication data provided by the authentication service 1512 maytake a variety of forms. For example, the authentication data mayinclude a token uniquely created for a transaction, which may includeany suitable data in structured or unstructured form. For example, theauthentication data may include a random or pseudo-random data string.The authentication data may also or instead include encrypted data ordigitally signed data where downstream verification might usefully beperformed with reference to a trusted third party. The authenticationdata may also or instead include information about the heartbeat or theidentity of the user of the endpoint. In one aspect, the authenticationdata may contain an indication from the authentication service 1512 thatthe health status is satisfactory, which may be encrypted for securecommunication and/or digitally signed for verification.

The authentication data may be communicated through a variety ofcommunication channels. For example, the authentication data may bereturned directly to the authentication requester 1504 in eitherplaintext or encrypted form. The authentication data may also or insteadbe returned to the endpoint 1506 for use as a token in a subsequentauthentication process. In another aspect, the authentication data maybe transmitted to the user in an electronic mail, text message or thelike for use as a manual input to an authentication process. Such acommunication may be returned to the endpoint 1506 for manual use fromthat location, or the communication may be forward to a user device 1514such as a smart phone, pager, hardware token or other device associatedwith the user, thus providing a further authentication factor for theauthentication process.

Other techniques may also or instead be employed by the authenticationservice 1512 to communicate a satisfactory condition of the endpoint, orto provide additional authentication factors in a multi-factorauthentication process. For example, if the heartbeat indicates asatisfactory health state, a call may be placed to the user's smartphone providing them with a spoken version of a short, one-time codethat can be manually entered elsewhere, or asking the user to verifythat a heartbeat-based identity authentication has been authorized. Averification code may also or instead be sent to an applicationexecuting on a mobile device, or a verification request may be sent tothe application.

FIG. 16 shows a method for multi-factor authentication using an endpointheartbeat. More particularly, the method 1600 described below includes amethod for operating an authentication service that supportsmulti-factor authentication using a heartbeat.

As shown in step 1602, the method 1600 may include receiving aheartbeat. This may include receiving a periodic heartbeat reported atsome scheduled intervals by the endpoint, or this may include receivingthe heartbeat in response to an explicit request for a heartbeat from anauthentication service or other requester. In general, the heartbeat maybe cryptographically secure, e.g., to permit verification of a source ofthe heartbeat with reference to a trusted third party. For example, thecontent of the heartbeat may be encrypted, or the heartbeat may becryptographically signed. While this is illustrated as the first step ina process, it will be appreciated that the heartbeat may also or insteadbe received in response to or otherwise following an authenticationrequest as contemplated below. Thus in one example embodiment anauthentication request may be made, and then a heartbeat may berequested by an authentication service so that the health state of theendpoint can be confirmed before providing authentication data.

As shown in step 1604, the method 1600 may include receiving anauthentication request for authentication data for the endpoint. Therequest may be received from the endpoint, or from some other entity ordevice such as a hardware token associated with a user of the endpointor some other computing device other than the endpoint. For example,receiving the authentication request may include receiving a requestfrom the endpoint for a token suitable for authenticating a user of theendpoint to a secure service that is accessible by the endpoint througha data network. As noted above, the authentication data may generallyinclude a token or other data, identifier, or the like that can be usedby the endpoint to authenticate to other resources, or alternatively,used by any such other resources when an endpoint attempts toauthenticate.

The request may be received at any of a number of network locations orresources that might participate in a heartbeat-based multi-factorauthentication system as contemplated herein. For example, receiving therequest for authentication data may include receiving the request at oneor more of a cloud service, a firewall or a gateway. The recipient mayalso receive the heartbeat, or the request may be forwarded to aseparate authentication service or other resource that can use therequest in combination with the heartbeat information to make anappropriate authentication decision and take corresponding action.

As shown in step 1606, the method 1600 may include evaluating a healthstatus of the endpoint. This may be based on the presence and/or contentof the heartbeat, along with any other context or useful information. Ascontemplated herein, the heartbeat may directly encode an explicithealth status, or the heartbeat may contain information from which ahealth status can be inferred. The health status may be “compromised” or“unsatisfactory,” for example, when the endpoint contains malware, hasexposure to unknown content, or is otherwise in an actual or potentialstate of compromise. As described herein, the health status may bereported at various levels of granularity. For example, the healthstatus may include a health status of one or more files on the endpointor a process executing on the endpoint. The health status may also orinstead be for the endpoint overall, or for a particular user (e.g. anaccount) of the endpoint.

As shown in step 1608, a determination may be made whether the healthstatus is satisfactory. If the health status is not satisfactory, themethod 1600 may proceed to step 1614 where any suitable remediation maybe performed. This may include withholding authentication data, orgenerating a defective token or other bogus authentication data that cansignal a compromised health status to recipients. This may also orinstead include notifying a threat management facility or otherindividual or resource of the state of the endpoint so that appropriateremedial action can be undertaken. After any remediation is completed,the method 1600 may return to step 1602 where another heartbeat may bereceived, e.g. for the same endpoint or for a different endpoint in anenterprise network.

As shown in step 1610, if the health status is satisfactory (asdetermined in step 1608), the method 1600 may include generatingauthentication data such as any of the authentication data describedabove. For example, this may include generating a token for use by theendpoint when authenticating to other resources. This may also includeencrypting the authentication data, digitally signing the authenticationdata, or otherwise processing the authentication data for downstreamuse.

As shown in step 1612, the method 1600 may include transmitting theauthentication data to a recipient in response to the request. This may,for example include returning a token to the endpoint or otherwisedirectly providing the authentication data to a requester. This may alsoor instead include indirectly providing authentication data bycommunicating the authentication data to a resource other than therequester. In an embodiment, transmitting the authentication data mayinclude transmitting a token to an endpoint, and transmittinginformation for verifying the token to an access control system used bythe endpoint to access a secure service. The access control system canthen use this information to authenticate the endpoint when the endpointpresents the token. The information for verifying the token may includea copy of the token, or other cryptographic information such as a key, ahash, or the like, that might usefully be employed to verify the sourceand authenticity of the token.

The recipient of the authentication data may include the endpoint, whichmay receive the token directly, or the recipient may include a mobiledevice or other computing device. Thus for example, transmitting theauthentication data may include transmitting a text message to a mobiledevice of a user of the endpoint or an electronic mail message to anelectronic mail account of the user of the endpoint. By way ofnon-limiting example, the authentication data may include a one-timecode transmitted to a smart phone of the user for manual entry into auser interface of the endpoint. More generally, the authentication datamay be created and shared in a number of manners.

As shown in step 1614, the method 1600 may include processing theauthentication data at a recipient. For example, where the recipient isan endpoint and the authentication data is a token, the endpoint maypresent the token to an access control system for access to remoteresources. The recipient may also or instead include an access controlsystem or the like, and the method 1600 may include locally comparingthe authentication data received from the endpoint to an expectedresponse, which may be evaluated by retrieving the token or a proxy forthe token from the authentication service, or by decrypting or otherwiseprocessing the token received from the endpoint.

According to the foregoing, a multi-factor authentication system basedon heartbeat may be deployed on any suitable security appliance such asa cloud service for supporting multi-factor authentication or a gatewayfor an enterprise network. The security appliance may include a networkinterface configured to couple the security appliance in a communicatingrelationship with a data network; a memory; and a processor configuredby computer code stored in the memory to perform the steps of receivinga heartbeat from an endpoint that is cryptographically secured throughthe network interface, receiving a request for authentication data forthe endpoint through the network interface, evaluating a health statusof the endpoint based on the heartbeat, generating authentication dataif the health status of the endpoint is satisfactory, and transmittingthe authentication data to a recipient in response to the request.

The above systems, devices, methods, processes, and the like may berealized in hardware, software, or any combination of these suitable fora particular application. The hardware may include a general-purposecomputer and/or dedicated computing device. This includes realization inone or more microprocessors, microcontrollers, embeddedmicrocontrollers, programmable digital signal processors or otherprogrammable devices or processing circuitry, along with internal and/orexternal memory. This may also, or instead, include one or moreapplication specific integrated circuits, programmable gate arrays,programmable array logic components, or any other device or devices thatmay be configured to process electronic signals. It will further beappreciated that a realization of the processes or devices describedabove may include computer-executable code created using a structuredprogramming language such as C, an object oriented programming languagesuch as C++, or any other high-level or low-level programming language(including assembly languages, hardware description languages, anddatabase programming languages and technologies) that may be stored,compiled or interpreted to run on one of the above devices, as well asheterogeneous combinations of processors, processor architectures, orcombinations of different hardware and software. In another aspect, themethods may be embodied in systems that perform the steps thereof, andmay be distributed across devices in a number of ways. At the same time,processing may be distributed across devices such as the various systemsdescribed above, or all of the functionality may be integrated into adedicated, standalone device or other hardware. In another aspect, meansfor performing the steps associated with the processes described abovemay include any of the hardware and/or software described above. Allsuch permutations and combinations are intended to fall within the scopeof the present disclosure.

Embodiments disclosed herein may include computer program productscomprising computer-executable code or computer-usable code that, whenexecuting on one or more computing devices, performs any and/or all ofthe steps thereof. The code may be stored in a non-transitory fashion ina computer memory, which may be a memory from which the program executes(such as random access memory associated with a processor), or a storagedevice such as a disk drive, flash memory or any other optical,electromagnetic, magnetic, infrared or other device or combination ofdevices. In another aspect, any of the systems and methods describedabove may be embodied in any suitable transmission or propagation mediumcarrying computer-executable code and/or any inputs or outputs fromsame.

The elements described and depicted herein, including in flow charts andblock diagrams throughout the figures, imply logical boundaries betweenthe elements. However, according to software or hardware engineeringpractices, the depicted elements and the functions thereof may beimplemented on machines through computer executable media having aprocessor capable of executing program instructions stored thereon as amonolithic software structure, as standalone software modules, or asmodules that employ external routines, code, services, and so forth, orany combination of these, and all such implementations may be within thescope of the present disclosure. Examples of such machines may include,but may not be limited to, personal digital assistants, laptops,personal computers, mobile phones, other handheld computing devices,medical equipment, wired or wireless communication devices, transducers,chips, calculators, satellites, tablet PCs, electronic books, gadgets,electronic devices, devices having artificial intelligence, computingdevices, networking equipment, servers, routers and the like.Furthermore, the elements depicted in the flow chart and block diagramsor any other logical component may be implemented on a machine capableof executing program instructions. Thus, while the foregoing drawingsand descriptions set forth functional aspects of the disclosed systems,no particular arrangement of software for implementing these functionalaspects should be inferred from these descriptions unless explicitlystated or otherwise clear from the context. Similarly, it may beappreciated that the various steps identified and described above may bevaried, and that the order of steps may be adapted to particularapplications of the techniques disclosed herein. All such variations andmodifications are intended to fall within the scope of this disclosure.As such, the depiction and/or description of an order for various stepsshould not be understood to require a particular order of execution forthose steps, unless required by a particular application, or explicitlystated or otherwise clear from the context. Absent an explicitindication to the contrary, the disclosed steps may be modified,supplemented, omitted, and/or re-ordered without departing from thescope of this disclosure. Numerous variations, additions, omissions, andother modifications will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in theart. In addition, the order or presentation of method steps in thedescription and drawings above is not intended to require this order ofperforming the recited steps unless a particular order is expresslyrequired or otherwise clear from the context.

The method steps of the implementations described herein are intended toinclude any suitable method of causing such method steps to beperformed, consistent with the patentability of the following claims,unless a different meaning is expressly provided or otherwise clear fromthe context. So for example performing the step of X includes anysuitable method for causing another party such as a remote user, aremote processing resource (e.g., a server or cloud computer) or amachine to perform the step of X. Similarly, performing steps X, Y and Zmay include any method of directing or controlling any combination ofsuch other individuals or resources to perform steps X, Y and Z toobtain the benefit of such steps. Thus method steps of theimplementations described herein are intended to include any suitablemethod of causing one or more other parties or entities to perform thesteps, consistent with the patentability of the following claims, unlessa different meaning is expressly provided or otherwise clear from thecontext. Such parties or entities need not be under the direction orcontrol of any other party or entity, and need not be located within aparticular jurisdiction.

It will be appreciated that the methods and systems described above areset forth by way of example and not of limitation. Numerous variations,additions, omissions, and other modifications will be apparent to one ofordinary skill in the art. In addition, the order or presentation ofmethod steps in the description and drawings above is not intended torequire this order of performing the recited steps unless a particularorder is expressly required or otherwise clear from the context. Thus,while particular embodiments have been shown and described, it will beapparent to those skilled in the art that various changes andmodifications in form and details may be made therein without departingfrom the spirit and scope of this disclosure and are intended to form apart of the invention as defined by the following claims, which are tobe interpreted in the broadest sense allowable by law.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer program product for operating afirewall to selectively forward network communications between a firstnetwork interface of the firewall operable to couple to an endpoint anda second network interface of the firewall operable to couple to aremote resource hosted at a server, the computer program productcomprising computer executable code embodied in a non-transitory memoryof the firewall that, when executing on the firewall, responds to arequest from the endpoint to the remote resource by performing the stepsof: determining an identity of an application that originated therequest on the endpoint based on an application identity contained in apacket carrying the request; determining a security a security state ofthe application that originated the request; and conditionallyforwarding the request to the server only when the identity of theapplication is recognized and the security state of the application isuncompromised.
 2. The computer program product of claim 1 whereindetermining the security state of the application that originated therequest includes determining the security state based on a secureheartbeat included in the packet.
 3. The computer program product ofclaim 1 wherein determining the security state of the applicationincludes traversing a causal chain of events on the endpoint to identifya root cause of the request.
 4. The computer program product of claim 1wherein conditionally forwarding the request to the server includesconditionally forwarding the request to the server only when thesecurity state of the endpoint is uncompromised.
 5. A firewallconfigured to selectively forward network communications, the firewallcomprising: a first network interface operable to couple to an endpoint;a second network interface operable to couple to a remote resourcehosted at a server; and a processor in the firewall, the processorconfigured to respond to a request from the endpoint to the remoteresource for a service by performing the steps of: determining anidentity of an application that originated the request on the endpoint,determining a security a security state of the application, andconditionally forwarding the request to the server only when theidentity of the application is recognized and the security state of theapplication is uncompromised.
 6. The firewall of claim 5 whereindetermining the identity of the application includes following a causalchain from a nominal originating application to identify a root cause ofthe request.
 7. The firewall of claim 5 wherein the firewall is locallycoupled to the remote resource.
 8. The firewall of claim 5 wherein thefirewall is locally coupled to the endpoint.
 9. The firewall of claim 5wherein the endpoint and the remote resource are peers coupled togetherthrough a peer-to-peer network.
 10. The firewall of claim 5 wherein theidentity of the application is extracted from the request.
 11. Thefirewall of claim 5 wherein the security state of the application isextracted from the request.
 12. The firewall of claim 5 whereinconditionally forwarding the request includes conditionally forwardingthe request to the server only when the security state of the endpointis uncompromised.
 13. The firewall of claim 5 wherein determining thesecurity state of the application includes querying the endpoint fromthe firewall for indicia of compromise.
 14. The firewall of claim 5wherein determining the identity of the application includes queryingthe endpoint from the firewall for the identity.
 15. The firewall ofclaim 5 wherein the processor is further configured to perform the stepsof monitoring a pattern of traffic to the remote resource from aplurality of endpoints and automatically developing a rule foracceptable connections to the server based on the pattern of traffic.16. The firewall of claim 5 wherein the request from the endpointincludes credentials authenticating the application to the server. 17.The firewall of claim 5 wherein the request from the endpoint containsan encrypted heartbeat containing information about a state of theendpoint.
 18. The firewall of claim 5 wherein determining the securitystate of the application includes querying the endpoint for at least oneof credentials authenticating the application to the server, credentialsauthenticating a user of the endpoint to the server, or an encryptedheartbeat containing information about a state of the endpoint.
 19. Thefirewall of claim 5 wherein the processor is further configured totransmit a notification to the endpoint when an indication of compromiseis detected for the application.
 20. A method for operating a firewallto selectively forward network communications between a first networkinterface of the firewall operable to couple to an endpoint and a secondnetwork interface of the firewall operable to couple to a remoteresource hosted at a server, the method including responding to arequest from the endpoint to the remote resource by performing the stepsof: determining an identity of an application that originated therequest on the endpoint; determining a security a security state of theapplication; and conditionally forwarding the request to the server onlywhen the identity of the application is recognized and the securitystate of the application is uncompromised.